


The Warrior and the Wolf

by Vigs



Series: The Doctor and the Dreamers [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-10 02:09:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 21,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4373162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vigs/pseuds/Vigs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor needed someone with him, anyone, to help stave off the loneliness. He had no idea what he found when he met Rose Tyler.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rising

**Author's Note:**

> Missing scenes and in-betweens for series 1 of new Who. This story was originally posted on Teaspoon.
> 
> This first chapter has some crossover with Fifth Doctor companion Nyssa, but you don't need to know much about her and that will not be an ongoing story element.
> 
> You should know up-front, this is a story about love, but it's not a story about One True Love. If Rose has to be the Doctor's One True Love for you to want to read a Rose/Doctor story, you won't enjoy this one. But I hope you will give it a go. Please let me know what you think.

The Doctor woke on his TARDIS with no real memory of what he’d done just prior to regenerating. He wasn’t sure why that would be, but he knew what he must have done, and had no wish to regain the memory. Dying permanently would have been better, but apparently there was something inside him that wasn’t ready to give up just yet, so here he was, a new man. He was the Doctor again, and now he had a new title: Last of the Time Lords.  
  
The TARDIS took him to Terminus and then all but booted him out the door and into Nyssa’s arms. She’d only had a few months without him, he gathered, and her presence was soothing in its familiarity, her hands gentle as she nursed him through the worst regeneration sickness he’d ever had.  
  
“They’re all gone,” he told her--the only words he said to her the entire time he was there. “I’m the last.”  
  
He saw the partial understanding in her eyes, felt her try to send a pulse of empathy through telepathic pathways he’d built with her in their time together, and although he accepted the comfort he would not let her in, would not tell her the whole truth. Sweet, gentle Nyssa, last of her kind as well, but he would lose all her sympathy if she knew that his isolation was of his own making.  
  
If she knew he’d killed them all. Worse than killed, unmade. His father, his daughter, his granddaughter, Romana, Koschei. So many people he had never and now could never meet, so many  _children_. In a very real way, they had never existed. In a way that was just as real, he’d burned them alive.  
  
As his body healed, the Doctor went deep into his mind and built walls. Tall, sturdy walls that would keep the pain and the grief inside. He could not manage those feelings alone, could not use any of the mind-techniques that the Time Lords had developed for dealing with trauma, not without assistance that no longer existed. All he could do was repress and cope, like a primitive. Like a human.  
  
There was a reason he’d regenerated instead of just dying. A reason that the universe still had a Doctor. It wasn’t fate or some sort of higher power, just him. Just the part of him that lived to change and to meddle and to help, however he could.  
  
Even if he lived long enough that his personal timeline stretched past the age of the universe from its fiery birth to its dark death, he would never be able to truly atone. But he could help.  
  
When his body had healed and his mental defenses were as strong as he could possibly make them, he stood up from his sickbed. Nyssa gently admonished him for moving too quickly, but he silenced her with a kiss, the first he’d had in two lives, pouring all the gratitude and affection he felt for her through the connection.  
  
Then he left, before he could be tempted to form a deeper connection and expose her to guilt beyond bearing.  
  
The war had displaced beings and civilizations and entire species, and now the survivors were quarreling with one another. He could help. He was the Doctor, and he would make it better or--maybe preferably--die trying.  
  
It was grimmer work than it had been in the past, largely because he was a grimmer man. No absurd frippery, no bouncing hair, just a close crop and a leather jacket. No point even looking in a mirror. He’d been at it for at least a month when his travels brought him to Earth--to London, in particular. London had always been a favorite of his. Humans, too, daft barely-beyond-animal things though they were.  
  
And there was a girl. Her mouth was disproportionately wide and her accent grated and she’d chemically stripped the eumelanin from her hair for some incomprehensible reason. Holding her hand, tugging her along behind him and away from danger, listening to her admirably rapid adjustment to living in a larger universe than she’d ever suspected made him feel more like the Doctor than anything had since he’d cast off that frock coat, so many violent years ago. He was having fun again.  
  
She had to come with him. Nothing could assuage the guilt, but a bright human presence on the TARDIS again would go far in fighting the loneliness. It should be easy, convincing someone so clever and so brave that her life would be better by his side. It could even be true, had often been before, although he doubted that it would be this time. He was too broken. The fact that he was determined to do it anyway was proof enough of that.  
  
He laid the bait--”That’s who I am. Now forget me.”  
  
He set the trap--”Goes anywhere in the universe, free of charge.”  
  
And she said no.  
  
He almost broke down then, standing in the empty TARDIS in the emptier Vortex. Maybe he’d lost his touch, his knack for luring young humans into danger and the unknown. Maybe he wasn’t the Doctor after all, much as he wanted to be...just the warrior. Just the destroyer.  
  
The TARDIS’ hum in his mind was just enough, just barely enough, to keep him going. It was like starving to death very slowly, feeling the gnawing emptiness every moment of every day. There had been times long ago when he’d resented the permanence of his mental link to the Time Lords, times when he’d hated them, even a time when he’d tried to sever it. He hadn’t known, then, that it could feel like this. Like the universe contained nothing but himself and his TARDIS and death.  
  
He never asked twice. The Doctor never asked twice, that was a part of it, a part of the little game he played with himself and his companions over the centuries. Sometimes they stowed away, sometimes he kidnapped them a bit, but he never asked twice.  
  
She’d wanted to come, he’d seen it. Without knowing it, she’d been hungry for something like this. It was clear in the way she’d hung on his every word, in the way she grabbed his hand and ran with him, in the immediate way she said “Yes” when he asked whether it was alright that he was alien. It was more than alright with Rose Tyler, if her glazed expression at the time had been anything to go by. She’d wanted him to convince her to come. If he went back, she’d be on his TARDIS in an instant.  
  
But that wasn’t how it worked. Anyone thick enough to turn down a trip through all of space and time didn’t get a second chance.  
  
As soon as he’d thought it, he saw the loophole and grinned hugely, returning the TARDIS to its previous position.  
  
“By the way, did I mention, it also travels in time.”  
  
And just like that, no more empty TARDIS.


	2. High

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My version of Rose is a little different from most I've seen written, but I think she's equally plausible given what we see in canon. Most of this chapter takes place after episode 2, "The End of the World."

Rose had been ten years old when she discovered the heady, full-body thrill of adrenaline. (Not that she had known what to call it at the time, but when she took biology in high school, she hadn’t been at all surprised to learn that excitement and fear caused an actual chemical to course through her body, and its name was the only vocabulary term she bothered to memorize.) They’d lived in a little one-bedroom flat back then, in a tall building with no roof access. She snuck out of the flat in the middle of one summer night, crept past her mother’s snores in stocking feet, sidled up the stairwell like a spy in a movie, and then flung herself through the open hall window onto the fire escape to climb the last flight onto the roof.  
  
Even in the middle of the night, there weren’t many stars to see. She looked out around her instead, looked at the lights of London, cars and windows and streetlights and all the people walking around, not knowing that they were being spied on by a ten-year-old.  
  
She did that every night for the final month of summer break, less for the view and more for the thrill of that instant between the window and the fire escape where there was nothing below her and if she dropped she would actually die. It made her blood fizz in her veins like cola.  
  
She did all the things that kids do to seek thrills, climbed things that were a bit too tall and snuck out and, in later years, experimented with kissing boys and kissing girls and handjobs under the bleachers and smoking whatever was available. The drugs didn’t appeal to her much for their own sake, though. When she was drunk or on weed, the world was all soft and yielding, and she wanted it hard and sharp and cutting to the bone.  
  
She was thirteen the first time she felt someone else’s hand under her shirt, and the rush of it felt almost like swinging out the window that time, but it grew boring with repetition. Still, she managed to keep getting her fix from other sexual firsts for a good three years, with hands in new places and mouths in new places and the electric jolt of pride from feeling a cock harden in her hand or against her thigh. Even though the dangerous feeling of it all was the point, she played it safe, bought condoms in bulk and used them each time, because single motherhood sounded like the opposite of a thrill.  
  
When she was halfway through sixteen she met Jimmy, and he was that fizzy-veins feeling personified. She had known that adrenaline could get her high, but he taught her about overdose and withdrawal. Leaving him felt like a ten year old plodding down the stairs back to her flat and her safe pink bedroom, knowing that the excitement of summer was over and she’d have to wake up for school tomorrow, but staying with him would have felt like dying.  
  
Three months after leaving Jimmy, she got a job in a shop. Five months after that she got a safe boyfriend--Mickey, the one boy she’d known forever who had never been anything but a friend despite her reputation, who she knew had loved her forever in a quiet, safe way. When she kissed him the first time, his whole face lit up like Christmas, and she felt a different thrill. A better kind of thrill, she told herself.  
  
She’d been dating Mickey for a little more than a year the day he was replaced by a plastic dummy and she didn’t notice. The day she met the Doctor.  
  
Being around the Doctor was the first thing she found that was even better than jumping from the window to the fire escape. The feelings of that instant were stretched out, multiplied and reflected like the endless images in parallel mirrors. He saved her life and she saved his and together they saved the world. That couldn’t be bad, could it? Chasing that feeling couldn’t be bad, not if it was saving the world.  
  
The memory of Jimmy and how that had ended kept her out of the TARDIS. That and the fact that she hadn’t even noticed when her boyfriend, currently wrapped around her legs, was replaced by a plastic dummy. The fact that despite how she’d scolded the Doctor, she had also forgotten for running, laughing moments at a time that Mickey might be dead.  
  
And then he came back for her, and even if he hadn’t had the extra temptation of time travel to dangle in front of her, she still would have given Mickey a quick goodbye kiss and run, laughing, into the TARDIS.  
  
Her mood was considerably more subdued when the TARDIS doors opened on London again. Adrenaline was good, adrenaline was great, but helplessness was not her thing at all. She’d been helpless, unable to do anything but scream as the line of deadly light marched towards her, unable to prevent or even watch the death of the Earth, unable--as she discovered just before they left--to save Raffalo, the friendly blue plumber.  
  
She was able to purchase and eat chips, which did a good bit for her mood.  
  
“So,” she said when she’d slowed from gobbling to eating, “What should we say next time someone asks what we are?”  
  
“Well, human, I s’pose,” the Doctor said, munching away. “You lot get everywhere, and most people don’t check, so they won’t notice I’m not.”  
  
“No, I mean...like when Jabe asked what we were,” Rose clarified, uncomfortably aware that the Doctor hadn’t actually said no to ‘prostitute.’ “I mean, when she asked whether I was your wife, and all.”  
  
“Oh, I dunno.” The Doctor looked slightly uncomfortable as well. “Traveling companion?”  
  
Well, that sounded like a euphemism if Rose had ever heard one. She remembered the look Raffalo had given her when she’d said she was there at an event for the very very rich with a man she didn’t even know.  
  
“Right.” Maybe it was just an alien thing, the fact that he didn’t know how that sounded. Or, well, maybe it was a euphemism. He was the one with the time-and-space ship. Buying the chips wasn’t exactly on the same level. Maybe he was expecting her to bring something else to the table. Or the bedroom.  
  
It wasn’t that she minded the idea of shagging him, not even a little bit. What she could see of him under that leather jacket looked entirely appealing, and there was an intensity about him that made her skin feel tight. She just didn’t want that to be the reason he’d brought her with him.  
  
Not that it’d be a deal-breaker if it was. Rose Tyler wasn’t about to give up the greatest adventure that anyone anywhere had ever been offered just for some weird pride thing. Anyway, it couldn’t be just that, right? She had saved his life, after all. No point in continuing to wonder, she decided.  
  
“There a bed on the TARDIS?” she asked. “Or do you just sleep in hotels?”  
  
“I don’t sleep,” he informed her. “Superior biology. There’s a few dozen guest rooms, though. You can claim one of those, if you still want to come.”  
  
“Sounds great,” she said. “Wait, a few dozen?”  
  
“Bigger on the inside.” He was smiling daffily, delightedly. “So you do still want to come, then?”  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”  
  
“Fantastic.”  
  
They walked back to the TARDIS, hand in hand. Rose’s nerves were humming with a delightful anticipation. She wished he would just kiss her already, give her a clear sign that she wasn’t reading the signals wrong. Or maybe aliens didn’t kiss? She hoped he’d make an exception, if that was the case. Otherwise it’d feel all  _Pretty Woman_  and weird.  
  
The TARDIS dematerialized while the Doctor explained that it would sit in something called a Time Vortex until she was ready for another adventure.  
  
“Bedrooms are sort of scattered around, but the doors are all painted white,” he told her. “They all look about the same, and they move around some, so no reason to be picky.”  
  
“Right,” she said, confused. He didn’t sound like he was planning to come with her. “You joining me when you’ve got the ship settled, then?”  
  
He looked up at her, startled. “Why would I do that?”  
  
“No reason,” she said hastily. “Um...g’night, then.”  
  
“No night on the TARDIS,” he said. “But sleep well.”  
  
“Yeah.” She walked to the entrance to the hallway, then hesitated, looking back. He was leaning over the console, giving her an excellent chance to ogle an alien arse. Conflicted though she’d felt before, she was now quite certain that she wanted to find out whether and how aliens kissed, and how those strangely-smooth hands would feel on other parts of her body.  
  
“Doctor?”  
  
“Yeah?” He looked up.  
  
“You sure you don’t want to join me?”  
  
His brow furrowed with confusion, then suddenly cleared. He looked extremely uncomfortable. “Don’t think that boyfriend of yours would like that much, do you?” he muttered, not looking at her.  
  
“When your girlfriend says goodbye and jumps into another man’s ride, that’s usually a pretty clear signal that she isn’t your girlfriend any more,” Rose told him, smiling. Was that really his problem? It was sort of sweet, actually. She walked back across the room towards him.  
  
“Ah,” he muttered. “Rose...I’m an alien.”  
  
“I know. Told you it was fine.”  
  
“Well, that’s grand and all, but you can’t expect an alien to work the same way as a human.” He looked her in the eye, his face unreadable. “What you’re asking for, I can’t give.”  
  
“Oh.” She felt herself flush, knew she was probably tomato-red from scalp to shins.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Um...sorry. I’ll just, um, go to bed, then. G’night.” She turned and almost jogged out.  
  
“No night on the TARDIS,” she heard him say behind her.


	3. Breakfast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was inspired to write this fic by the number of times I wanted to yell "Why don't you just screw already!?" at the Doctor and Rose during the show. This chapter starts to reveal my answer to that question. Also, a bit of the Time War.

The Doctor had been propositioned quite a few times in his long life. It happened in some bodies considerably more frequently than others, of course. He’d gotten used to that sort of superficiality, living primarily among non-telepathic races. Of course they selected for mates by external traits, not having access to internal ones.  
  
And of course, since they had the ability to have sex with few lasting repercussions, they did. It had taken him a long time to realize that they weren’t actually trying to compensate for the lower quality of non-telepathic interpersonal connections with a greater quantity of physical connections. There wasn’t actually anything to compensate for. His past human partners had informed him that telepathic bonding was great and all, but it wasn’t better than what they could get from a member of their own species, just different.  
  
He’d never been jealous of that until now. Now that there was only silence in the part of his mind where the gentle murmur of the race consciousness of his people used to sit, and half the individuals he’d ever bonded with--the Time Lord half, the ones who should have lasted as long as he did--had ceased to exist.  
  
Now he could have used a shallow substitute for true connection. A closeness with no real substance behind it, a human-style orgasm that would shut off his perception of the world instead of attaching his consciousness to another’s. To Rose’s.  
  
No point in dwelling on impossible things. Even if Rose apparently found his body appealing (maybe she had a thing for ears?) she was psychologically incapable of tolerating a Time Lord mind without extensive preparations. And even that wouldn’t be enough to make them compatible, not any more. He couldn’t seek out an old lover either. His mind was poison.  
  
By the time Rose woke up, he’d already landed the TARDIS.  
  
“Where are we?” she asked, bouncing slightly with excitement. “Or is it when are we?”  
  
“Late 21st century’s the when,” he informed her. “But in this case, I think you’ll be more impressed by the where. Have a look. And mind the gravity, it’ll change as soon as you’re out the door.”  
  
Rose’s eyes widened gratifyingly, and she practically sprinted to the door. He followed at a more sedate pace, trying not to smile when she tripped at the gravity differential and sailed much farther than she could have expected to.  
  
“That’s Jupiter!” she cried before she even hit the ground. The gas giant was huge in the sky behind her. “Oh my god, that’s actually Jupiter!”  
  
“Yep. Don’t go too far, now. There’s only air near the TARDIS.”  
  
She landed relatively gracefully for someone who’d never experienced anything but 1 G before, and ran back to him, launching herself at him from a distance for a gleeful hug. She probably didn’t expect that to slam him back against the TARDIS door.  
  
“Oof! Watch it. You still have mass, you know.”  
  
“Oh. Sorry.” She grinned up at him and let go. “That’s really Jupiter, though!”  
  
“Yeah. And that’s a volcano,” he told her, pointing in a direction she hadn’t looked yet. “We’re on Io. Nice place for a morning cuppa, I thought.”  
  
“A picnic breakfast on Io,” she said, sounding simultaneously awed and amused.  
  
“Well, you can sit on the ground if you want,” he said. His face was starting to ache. He must’ve been smiling constantly since she’d walked into the console room, and those muscles weren’t used to that sort of strain. “But I’ve got a better plan, me.”  
  
He reached into his pocket and produced a small, metallic cube that, when activated, unfolded into a feather-light table with two chairs attached. Rose clapped.  
  
“That’s brilliant!”  
  
“Have a seat and keep it from floating away,” he instructed. “I’ll grab some things from the galley.”  
  
The TARDIS tea set was self-preparing and bigger on the inside, and the bag of “continental breakfast” pastries had been given to him in thanks for saving an entire continent of amphibious people from drought. He shared the story with Rose as they waited for their tea to steep.  
  
“Okay, I think I get how you fixed it,” Rose said around a mouthful of not-quite-bagel, “But how did their sun get hotter in the first place?”  
  
“It suddenly increased in mass.” By a curious coincidence, the increase in mass was exactly equal to the mass of nine-tenths of the Dalek battle fleet. It had been one of the most decisive Time Lord victories of the war, hacking into their nav systems and changing their time and space coordinates just enough to send them into the heart of a star. After that, the Daleks had started rebuilding in closed paradoxical time loops, an unimaginably dangerous but highly effective strategy.  
  
“Alright, but how?”  
  
He took a long drink of tea, unable to meet her open and curious gaze.  
  
“It’s a terrible thing, when advanced races go to war,” he said at last.  
  
“Oh. So the people you helped...they were a part of it?”  
  
“No. Bystanders.”  
  
“Oh.” They both ate in silence for a while, looking up at the gas giant hanging in the sky.  
  
“Were your people bystanders?” Rose asked at last.  
  
“Only some of them.” Only the children, by the end. He finished off his tea and stood. “Right, I’ll set us a new course. Press this button here when you’re done, the table will fold right up, long as you aren’t sitting at it.”  
  
He walked back into the TARDIS with the tea set, and when Rose returned, he was every inch the enthusiastic tour-guide. Earth, Naples, Christmas, 1860. That should be about as far from the Time War as it was possible to get, by his reckoning, although calculating distance in four dimensions had never been his strongest skill.  
  
His first sight of Rose in clothing that was not of her own time took him by surprise. It was an effect he’d seen many times before; somehow, removing people from the familiar context of their own clothing seemed to reveal something about who they really were. So it wasn’t surprising that he saw something new in her; the surprise was that she was beautiful.  
  
She seemed strangely timid, considering that she was the same girl who just the day before had bounced from planetary death to chips to blatantly inviting him to her bed. There was something attractive about her shyness, the way it seemed like an unaccustomed emotion for her yet fit her perfectly, just like the unfamiliar clothing. It hinted at hidden depths.  
  
The uncomfortable truth was that where her forwardness had been merely an irritating reminder of what he couldn’t have, her shyness made him want to explore her. Made him want her. He didn’t particularly like what that said about him.  
  
Beautiful, for a human. That was certainly the truth. And if she interpreted that, along with his comments last night, to mean that he was inherently incompatible with humans, well--he essentially was, now. He’d had human lovers, but if he tried it with her he’d fry her brain like bacon.  
  
The Doctor had no wish to hear Rose Tyler sizzle.


	4. Memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place after "The Unquiet Dead."
> 
> I've often thought that traveling with the Doctor, amazing though it seems, tends to involve a lot of trauma that never really gets addressed. So this is me, and the Doctor, addressing it. (Plus alien telepathy UST.)

After Dickens and the Gelth, Rose and the Doctor sat in the TARDIS galley, drinking tea in silence. She was still wearing the dress. Tea and company felt more important than changing, just now.  
  
“Will there be a funeral?” she asked abruptly.  
  
“For Gwyneth? Course,” the Doctor told her. “Probably not much of one, but she’s bound to have belonged to a church, and they’ll do something for her.”  
  
Rose nodded. She almost wanted to ask if they could go. It’d been years since she’d been to a funeral, when they’d laid her mother’s father in the ground. It would be awkward and uncomfortable, but it felt wrong to just let Gwyneth’s sacrifice pass without ceremony.  
  
“What about Raffalo? From Platform One? Do her people do funerals?”  
  
“Most races do so something, to mark a death.”  
  
“Good. That’s good.”  
  
She wanted to ask what his people had done, or what he did, but she didn’t. Anything she said would probably come out as ‘so how have you mourned your dead race?’ and that was not a question he would appreciate.  
  
“Feels like I should...I dunno. Light a candle, or something.”  
  
“Can if you like.” He hesitated, looking unusually unsure of himself. “I can help you with something better, though. If you want.”  
  
“Better how?”  
  
“You’re looking for a way to accept those deaths. And everything else you’ve seen since we met. You want to do it symbolically, because that’s what you’re used to. But I can help you do it directly.” She couldn’t read his expression, but it was something intense. “And the longer you travel with me, the more you’ll see. I can teach you how to manage it.”  
  
“How? Some kind of alien therapy thing? You going to have me lay down on a couch and talk about my mum?”  
  
He snorted. “Therapy’s for apes who don’t have access to telepathy. But now you’ve met me, you’re an ape who does have access to telepathy.”  
  
Rose chewed her thumbnail. The Doctor was giving her that shit-eating grin of his, the one that didn’t quite reach his eyes.  _That supposed to sound impressive? Sort of, yeah._  
  
“So you want to poke around in my head, then? Least you’re asking, this time.”  
  
“Not poke around! I’d just help you find the memories that aren’t settling in quite right, teach you some tricks that’ll help. That’s all.”  
  
“Can’t you teach me without going in my head?”  
  
“I really can’t. It’d be like trying to teach you to paint over the telephone.” He took a drink of tea, breaking the too-intense eye contact. “Listen, you don’t want to, that’s fine. Just thought I’d offer.”  
  
“No, I do want you to!” Hell, she wanted to experience new and exciting things, didn’t she? Having the Doctor in her head definitely sounded like it would fit the bill.  
  
“Yeah?” He looked oddly hopeful.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Fantastic.” His smile seemed real now. “We can get started as soon as you’ve finished your tea, if you like.”  
  
“Alright, yeah.” She drained her mug and grinned at him. “Let’s do this.”  
  
He took a last swallow of his own tea, then set his mug aside and reached towards her face with both hands. For a mad moment, she thought he was going to kiss her, but he just put the first two fingers of each hand to her temples. His hands were as cold as ever, and they made a nice contrast with the heat of the tea in her stomach.  
  
“Now, there are a couple of ways to do this, but I want you to be able to sense where I am in your head, and that means making a conscious link,” he told her. “Close your eyes and think about a feeling that you have towards me--respect, awe, veneration--”  
  
She closed her eyes when he told her to, but when he said that she kicked him in the shin.  
  
“Oi! Just joking. Anyway, try to pick out one feeling that you have towards me. Doesn’t have to be complimentary, I won’t be offended. Just concentrate on one feeling and send it towards me.”  
  
Rose concentrated, trying to find something specific that she felt for him that wouldn’t either puff up his ego or, considering how last night had ended, send him running. Trust, she decided, and she concentrated on how comfortable she felt putting her life, and now her mind, in his hands.  
  
“Oh, that’s beautiful, that is,” he said softly. “Very well done. You’re a natural at this. I’m going to follow that feeling back into you, and you should be able to feel just where I am. If you want me out, just give me a nudge and I’m gone. Alright?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Suddenly the coolness of his fingers at her temples seemed to slip deeper, into her mind. There was a feeling like a hand politely knocking on a door, and without moving, she opened it.  
  
 _Perfect. Now that we’ve made the connection, we can use words._  It was his voice, in her mind. Not just his voice, though--it wasn’t just sound, it was a feeling of him-ness, a leather jacket and a goofy grin and the end of the world.  
  
 _Can you hear this?_  she thought at him, and wondered how her words felt to him.  
  
 _Yeah. Well, not hear exactly, but you don’t have words for it, so hear will do. Now I’m going to put you into a state of consciousness that’ll help you with this, alright? And once I’ve done it a few times, you should be able to remember how it feels and do it yourself._  
  
 _Alright._  
  
The feeling of coolness spread from her temples to fill her head, then slid down her neck, relaxing every muscle as it went. Down her shoulders...down her arms...her fingers were cool and limp, her lungs moved just enough to bring air in and out. Tension she hadn’t known she had left her back, her legs. She felt like a pool of still water.  
  
 _There._  The Doctor’s voice sounded satisfied.  _Now, this’ll be easiest for you if we work in metaphor. Picture a room that’s your mind._  
  
Before she could really think about it, Rose’s bedroom from home appeared, pink and purple and messy. She was sitting on the bed, and the Doctor was standing in the doorway, his lean form and dark colors looking out of place amongst the warmth and softness in her room.  
  
 _That’ll do nicely.  
  
It feels real. I mean, I can feel that I’m still sitting there with my eyes closed and all, but this looks more real than it should. Aren’t I just imagining it?  
  
Yes and no. In this mental state, your conscious mind is less separated from your unconsciousness. It’s sort of like hypnosis. Pick something up off the floor and show it to me._  
  
Rose bent and picked up a piece of white cloth. It looked like a lace doily, and for a moment, she didn’t recognize it. Then she realized that it was Gwyneth’s little lacy headcloth thing, and almost dropped it.  
  
 _That’s Gwyneth’s, isn’t it? You can’t just leave it on the floor forever, Rose, and you can’t hide it under the bed.  
  
Why not?  
  
Because it’ll always be there. Her memory will always be in you. You can try to ignore it, or try to bury it, but if you do that, it’ll be waiting to bite you when you least expect it.  
  
So you want me to obsess about it instead?  
  
No. I want you to look at it.  
  
I don’t want to look at it!  
  
Rose._ His eyes--her imagination of his eyes--were so kind and sad and so, so old.  _She’s dead. Honor her memory by accepting it._  
  
Hesitantly, Rose looked down at the object in her hands. Every moment she’d spent with Gwyneth passed through her in a wave. She could feel tears on her face--her real face.  
  
 _I couldn’t protect her.  
  
But you tried, Rose. Tried to protect her from them, and from me and my foolishness. And it was her choice, in the end.  
  
I did think she was stupid. I tried not to, but I did, and she knew.  
  
She liked you anyway.  
  
That supposed to help?  
  
Help or hurt, it’s the truth. Gwyneth died because she wanted to save her angels, and even in death, she saved us. She was a good woman and a brave woman.  
  
Yes,_ Rose agreed.  _I’m glad I met her.  
  
So am I._  
  
Rose stood and walked over to her dresser, folding the hat reverently. She put it into a drawer with other garments that she somehow knew represented other memories, then went to hold the Doctor’s hand in silence for a moment.  
  
 _How can I be holding your hand when I know your hands are still on my head?  
  
Well--  
  
Never mind, I wouldn’t understand anyway._ They were quiet again for a moment, then Rose said,  _Thanks.  
  
Any time, Rose. This was plenty for a first session. I’m going to end the link now, alright?  
  
Yeah._  
  
The room faded around Rose, and she became more aware that she was sitting in a chair with her eyes closed and the Doctor’s hands on her face. His cool presence pulled out of her mind, and his fingers slowly left her.  
  
“You did great,” the Doctor told her, and it was strange to hear him with her ears.  
  
“Thanks.” Rose stretched. “How long were we at it?”  
  
“One hour, twelve minutes, and forty-three seconds,” the Doctor answered promptly.  
  
“Blimey, no wonder I’m so tired.”  
  
“Forming the connection took much less time than it normally would, with a human,” he told her. “You’re a pretty strong latent telepath.”  
  
“What, me? You trying to tell me I can read minds?”  
  
“I said latent,” he said with a snort. “Only about one human in a billion can read minds. You’re more one in a million.”  
  
“But you can read minds?”  
  
“Have to be touching, like we were, or--” He seemed to change his mind about what he was saying. “Or it doesn’t work.”  
  
“Oh? What’m I thinking?” she asked playfully, and grabbed his hands and put them to her temples. The way she’d felt trust at him before, she sent him a wave of gratitude, for his help and for taking her with him.  
  
Rose had expected a chuckle, or maybe a smile like the one they’d shared when they were hand in hand in the basement, but instead the Doctor gasped and froze, staring at her like he could drill a hole through her head with his gaze. She dropped his hands.  
  
“Um...sorry...did I do something wrong?”  
  
“N-no.” He cleared his throat. His voice sounded rougher and deeper than usual. “Nothing wrong. Just didn’t expect that, is all.”  
  
“Okay. Well, sorry for startling you.”  
  
“Yeah. It’s alright.”  
  
If Rose hadn’t known better, she would have said that the Doctor looked more like someone who’d just had his hands stuck up a shirt or a skirt than on a forehead. Weird.  
  
“Okay, well, um, want to get some food? Is it lunchtime or dinner time? Hard to keep track when we go straight from breakfast on Io to the middle of the night on Earth.”  
  
“Don’t go boxing it up,” the Doctor admonished, looking and sounding more like himself again. “Eat when you’re hungry, sleep when you’re tired.”  
  
“Well, that’s all lovely, but I’ve got a pill I’m meant to take at the same time every day. What do I do about that?”  
  
“I can get you something better. What sort of pill?” he asked as he started rummaging through cupboards.  
  
“It’s, uh.” Already Rose regretted bringing it up. She could’ve figured something out. “You know,  _the_  pill.”  
  
“The…? Oh! Right. Yep, I can give you a shot that’ll last for a year if you like. No ovulation, no menstruation, no side effects. Fancy some pasta?” He held up a box.  
  
“Sounds good. The shot and the pasta, I mean. Both.” Rose had sort of been wondering how space and time and tampons worked together. It’d be good not to have to. And it was sort of nice to have a bloke talk about things like that without getting all awkward. Probably because of his complete lack of interest in the relevant bits of her.  
  
She’d have been happy to trade the lack of awkwardness for some interest, though. Oh well, she’d get used to it.  
  
The pasta was very good. The sauce tasted like tomato sauce but was a sort of purple color, and the Doctor told her all about the planet Foooom, where the plant that made the sauce had come from.  
  
“Can we go there, then?” she asked. “To Foooom?”  
  
“I thought the aliens were too alien for you,” he said with a grin.  
  
“Nah. I’m all for aliens. I’ve had aliens in my head, even.” She smiled back at him teasingly.  
  
“Fantastic. Let’s go.”  
  
By the time they’d finished up on Foooom--it had turned out that the locals were getting sick from fumes from the takeoff system of the ships that exported the pasta sauce, so Rose and the Doctor (mostly the Doctor, although Rose was the one who got the labor unions on board with the deal) helped them finish up their space elevator a few decades ahead of schedule--Rose was exhausted.  
  
“I’m going to bed,” she announced as soon as they were back on board. “Good night, Doctor.”  
  
“No night on the--”  
  
“Nope!” She held up a hand. “I declare it to be night, okay? Maybe it’s not night over where you’re standing, but over here, I am in my own little bubble of night. Alright?”  
  
“Fine,” he said, with exasperation she was sure was fake. “Good night then, Rose.”  
  
“Good night, Doctor!” she chirped, and went to her room.  
  
She’d assumed that she’d fall asleep instantly, but somehow she found herself remembering how it had felt to have him in her mind earlier that day. The way the coolness flowed into her and down her body, filling every bit of her...how had that not turned her on at the time?  
  
He must’ve done something to keep her from getting turned on by what he was doing. That was the only explanation, because now, when she remembered how his coolness had filled her breasts, slid down her stomach, relaxed the muscles in her arse and in her hips and even her interior muscles…  
  
When she was at home she usually used a very nice vibrator, one she’d saved up for over the course of months. That night, her hands were plenty.


	5. Insults

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes a rewrite of a chunk of the episode "Aliens of London," pretty much entirely because it bugged me that Rose using "gay" as an insult went without comment.

The time that followed was the happiest the Doctor had gotten in lifetimes. Granted, that wasn’t saying much, but it was still something. They’d been traveling for over a week in subjective time when Rose started talking about wanting to say hi to her mum and pick up some things from her flat.  
  
He didn’t want to let her go back. Every day was a new adventure, and with her, it was fun again. With her there, he could see alien worlds like they were new, instead of seeing only the destruction left by the Time War. They had breakfast on a different uninhabited world each time she woke up, then explored and saved worlds and each other and held hands and hugged and he wasn’t alone. When she was exhausted they’d decompress with some tea, and then most days he would go into her mind and help her sort out the day’s memories.  
  
She didn’t really need him to do that, at this point, but he was entirely unable to tell her so. It was just so good to touch another mind, particularly one that eagerly welcomed him in. Sometimes he caught a glimpse of her deeper self, the way he had when she’d unexpectedly reached out to him that first evening, and it always sent a wave of desire coursing through him.  
  
He could have explained it all to her. If she wanted, he could have used the time when their minds touched to start preparing her for a deeper connection. Let her into his mind, let her get used to the vastness of him. He’d done it before.  
  
Instead, he brought her home to her mother.  
  
After the shouting and the police and the slapping, Rose pointed him up the stairs to the roof, to wait for her. He tried to brace himself to be alone again. There was a time when he wouldn’t have waited, but that didn’t even feel like an option now. He was still there when she joined him on the roof.  
  
“Hey,” she said, hopping up to sit on the wall he was leaning against.  
  
“She let you out of her sight?” he asked. “I’m shocked.”  
  
“Yeah, well.” She changed the subject. “Always liked it, up on roofs. Better when you’re not supposed to be up there, though.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“You know, no one ever thought I was a whore before I started traveling with you. Or if they did, they didn’t mention it.”  
  
“What?” He blinked at her.  
  
“You know. First Jabe, and then I think Raffalo, and I’m sure Gwyneth did, talking about how I had the clothes but not the manners. And now the policeman. Soon as you said you’d employed me he asked if it was sexual.”  
  
“With all the insults you lot come up with, sometimes I forget they actually mean things.” He shook his head. “Daft things.”  
  
“What’s daft about ‘whore’?” she asked.  
  
“It’s like if you suddenly decided ‘electrician’ was an insult. It’s just a job.”  
  
“You’re so weird.”  
  
“Alien,” he reminded her.  
  
She was silent for a moment. He crossed his arms, getting used to the absence of her hand in his.  
  
“I can’t tell her,” she said abruptly. “I can’t even begin. She’s never going to forgive me. And I missed a year? Was it good?”  
  
“Middling.”  
  
“You’re so useless.”  
  
“Well, if it’s this much trouble, are you going to stay here now?”  
  
“I don’t know. I can’t do that to her again, though.”  
  
“Well, she’s not coming with us,” he snapped.  
  
She laughed, and he couldn’t help but laugh along with her.  
  
“No chance,” she agreed.  
  
“I don’t do families.”  
  
“She slapped you,” Rose reminded him gleefully.  
  
“900 years of time and space, and I’ve never been slapped by someone’s mother.”  
  
“Your face!” She was still grinning away. He faked outrage, but couldn’t really be angry at that smile.  
  
“It hurt!”  
  
“You’re so gay.”  
  
“Oh, and back to the daft insults, are we?” he asked. “Don’t know why I bother coming back to this planet.”  
  
“I don’t mean gay as in, you know, gay,” she stumbled. “Wait--are you, though?”  
  
“Time Lords don’t have sexual orientations.” He didn’t actually know whether this was true, but gender had never been a factor for him, and certainly no other Time Lord had ever mentioned anything of the sort. He realized that technically, since he was the only one left, the entire race now had a considerably higher average number of sexual partners than it had before. It was the first thought he’d had about his missing people that was almost funny, and before he could properly register his own amusement it was replaced by a new wave of guilt. Humor was a coping mechanism and he didn’t deserve to cope.  
  
“Right, too alien for that,” Rose said, clearly oblivious. “So, when you say 900 years…”  
  
“That’s my age.” Or it was the amount of subjective time that he’d had the TARDIS. Or something. He hadn’t really kept track, but it probably came out to 900 years on some planet or another.  
  
“You’re 900 years old?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“My mum was right. That is one hell of an age gap.” And there she was, still thinking in those terms no matter what he did. He couldn’t understand it. Was it the leather, or something? He was sure she hadn’t been able to see his interest in her on his face, and when they were mind-to-mind he kept his mental walls higher and firmer than they’d ever been.  
  
Their conversation was soon interrupted by an alien spacecraft, and at some point he really would need to try again to explain to the TARDIS that he didn’t always want to end up somewhere more interesting than where he’d asked her to take him, but for now there was a first contact situation to focus on. He’d always thought it was odd that humanity’s first contact wasn’t a fixed point; it wriggled up and down the years, apparently unable to decide when to occur. Maybe that would change once he’d observed it, pinned it down a bit. The difference between a fixed point and a point that he personally couldn’t change because he’d personally witnessed it was mostly academic, now that he was the only one left. They’d always felt about the same to him anyway.  
  
And then one thing led to another and he and Rose were brought to 10 Downing Street. It was sort of nice to be celebrated for being himself instead of condemned for being a Time Lord, for once. There were honor guards and flashbulbs and respectful looks and it was sort of adorable that Rose Tyler, who had seen the end of the world and eaten breakfast with him on Io, looked like she was overwhelmed by the excitement of entering the headquarters of the government of a little cluster of islands on one little world.  
  
He didn’t recognize anyone in the room full of so-called “experts,” so he defaulted to taking command of the situation, possibly showing off a little. Well, he was entitled, wasn’t he? In all likelihood, being in the room with him was the closest any of them had ever actually gotten to an alien.  
  
It was a bit of a rude shock to discover that he was not the only alien in the room. The actual electric shock was even more rude. Luckily, binary vascular systems were harder to disrupt with electricity, and the daft things were wearing entangled communicator/respirators, so he could at least temporarily stun all of them at once.  
  
And then it was the same old game, taunting crowds of humans with guns, running, rescuing Rose with a fire extinguisher, making a new friend with an oddly familiar name, more running, fast-talking, drinking the Prime Minister’s port, and generally being impressive.  
  
Then abruptly, it was no longer a game. The entire planet was at risk, and he could only see one way out.  
  
How could he kill someone important to him again? It was one thing to have brought her into danger, another thing to be the one to give the order that would kill Rose. Him too, in all likelihood, but that would probably just make another Doctor. There would never be another Rose Tyler.  
  
And Rose, who was always asking questions, told him to do it, without even asking what it was. So much trust, so much faith in him was in her words and the determined set of her mouth, and how could he ever have thought it was too wide?  
  
Maybe Harriet Jones’ name sounded familiar because she was the person fated to keep him from having a chance to finish out this life kissing Rose Tyler.  
  
But they lived, and Harriet Jones was going to be Prime Minister, and Rose was going to keep traveling with him. She’d even packed a big old bag. If she had everything she needed on the ship, maybe it would take longer for her to want to go home.  
  
That was why he’d invited Mickey. Maybe if he came along to give her all the things he couldn’t, love and sex and commitment and all that, she wouldn’t need to leave. Well, she would leave him eventually, of course, but maybe it would take longer. When Mickey refused, he actually wondered for a minute whether the idiot was intentionally sabotaging him, but decided it was unlikely.  
  
Eventually, she would leave. He couldn’t see her timeline, since it was too closely entwined with his own, but he knew that for a fact anyway. She would die, or she would want to go back to London and be Mrs. Mickey, or she would find another adventure with someone else. But for now, she was here, and it was good.


	6. Intimacy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More mind-stuff. This chapter takes place after the episode "World War Three."

“Feels different when it’s my planet we’ve saved,” Rose said to the Doctor over their customary post-adventure tea. “My own planet, my own time. My mum, and all.”  
  
“Don’t remind me,” the Doctor said with a wince.  
  
For a moment, Rose felt a flash of anger. The Doctor had taken her home a year late, and then refused to so much as have tea with her mum. That was surely worse than a slap. And her mum had been ready to listen, at the end.  
  
She forced it down. She’d known from the start that there were risks, and that he didn’t do domestic. It was a fair trade--more than fair.  
  
“Mickey did well, though,” she said. “That was a surprise.”  
  
“Yeah, suppose your boyfriend’s slightly less than totally useless. Well done, him,” the Doctor said sarcastically.  
  
“He’s not my boyfriend any more.”  
  
“He know that?”  
  
“Yes!” She hesitated, then decided to go for maximum teasing. “Actually, he seems to think you are.”  
  
“He’s even more of an idiot than I thought if he can’t think of any other reasons I’d want you around.” The intensity in his voice startled her.  
  
“Yeah.” She wasn’t sure what else to say. “Well, I told him we’re not like that.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
Rose drained her mug and put it aside. “So...would you mind, you know?” She raised her hands to her own temples, miming the touch he used to help her. “Going to have nightmares about Slitheen and missiles, otherwise.”  
  
“You could do it for yourself now, you know,” he told her. “Now that I’ve shown you how a few times.”  
  
“Oh.” It had been more than a few times, and she probably could at least get herself into her mind-room on her own, but she didn’t want to give up his help. Of course, he’d probably stop forever if he knew how having him so close to her, touching her face and actually inside her head, made her feel. “I like it, though. When you do it. But if you want to stop...”  
  
“I don’t.”  
  
“Good.” She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing, hoping that she would feel his cool touch on her forehead but not wanting to push him. Reflexively, she found herself projecting her absolute trust in him so that he’d feel it as soon as he touched her and slipping into the trancelike state that he normally helped her enter. He’d told her that it was a little like meditation and a little like hypnosis, which would be scary if the one hypnotizing her wasn’t the Doctor.  
  
If she hadn’t been in that cool, dreamlike state, she probably would have jumped out of her skin at what happened next. She felt his mind contact her own, this time projecting a feeling that she couldn’t quite put into words, something between awe and need and gratitude.  
  
Most of her consciousness was transported to her mental room, much neater now than it had been originally. Only a little bit of her attention was in her physical body, just enough to register the fact that instead of fingers at her temples she was feeling cool lips against her own, a gentle and unmoving open-mouthed kiss.  
  
 _This is another way to make contact_ , the Doctor told her.  _Is that alright?  
  
Yes_, she said immediately, then hesitated.  _Does it mean the same thing for you that it would for me?  
  
Affection. Intimacy. Yes._ He wasn’t quite communicating with her in words. This was something they’d been working on before, sending ideas and feelings instead of just words. He sent her a feeling of affection, a feeling of closeness, a feeling of affirmation.  
  
 _Desire?_  she asked, unable to stop herself from sending him that questioning feeling in response.  
  
 _Not as you understand it.  
  
Then help me understand._  
  
The Doctor she saw in her mind hesitated, then reached for her own mental image’s hand. He led her through the door out of her mind-room and into another door--the door to the TARDIS.  
  
 _Of course your mind is the TARDIS,_  she thought to him.  
  
 _Much, much bigger on the inside,_  he said, and she could feel that he was sending a warning.  _Leave if it’s too much._  
  
She sent him agreement, and together they stepped through the door and into a vast library. Bookshelves stretched out in all directions, even far over her head, seemingly without end. There was a table in front of them, the table from Downing Street, and on it a photograph of her face, looking drawn and afraid and trusting. She wanted to stop and examine it, but he pulled her onwards.  
  
One of the bookshelves was actually a heavy wooden door. He led her to it, and hesitated.  
  
 _This is what intimacy means for me,_  he said.  
  
 _Show me._  
  
He opened the door, and she was falling through endless space. Her mental self-image was gone, he was gone, there was nothing but a vast, whirling storm of...what? It was like crystal, or spiderweb, or a great many-branched tree, or water falling in eddies and streamlets. It didn’t just stretch out in all directions, as the library had; she could feel that it went in new directions, directions she didn’t and shouldn’t and couldn’t know.  
  
 _This is me,_  he told her, and his voice was around her and inside her.  _This is who I am._  
  
If she looked closely at one drop of water, one piece of crystal, she saw that it was a thought or a memory or a feeling, at once a whole and individual thing and a piece of the larger whole.  **setting 720F to emit a sound in the 30 kHz range -- the feeling of joy when a would-be despot actually backs down for once -- the smell of alien grass on an alien world -- the word “Exterminate” -- the word “Professor” -- the sensation of being shot --**  
  
It was too much, too much, she could feel tears leaking from her eyes and that brought her attention back to her lips, her real physical lips that were still locked with his own. She was kissing the storm, kissing something so vast and ancient and alien, so very alien, he could crush her like an insect and why would he bother not to when she was so small--  
  
And then he pushed her out gently, delicately, out of the storm and through the library and her mind was back in her own body and she was kissing a fit older man in a leather jacket, and that was all.  
  
He pulled away, but she followed, resting her forehead against his shoulder and shaking slightly against him.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he said. His voice was shaking almost as much as Rose was. “I went too fast.”  
  
“No, no,” she said. “I asked. It’s okay. I’m okay.”  
  
The Doctor’s arms went around her, his broad hands stroking her back soothingly. They sat like that in silence until Rose wasn’t shaking or crying any longer.  
  
“So that’s you, then?” she asked, pulling back slightly to look into his eyes. She half-expected to see that whirling, incomprehensible pattern in his eyes, but all she saw was sadness.  
  
“That’s me. The library’s a tool I use to organize my memories, like your bedroom. Past that is...well, you might call it the self, or the core, or the soul, if you felt like sounding superstitious. Memories, feelings, thoughts, everything that makes me me instead of someone else.” He sighed. “You have one too, everyone does. I should’ve taken you to see yours first. It would have been much less overwhelming.”  
  
“Why didn’t you?” She tried not to sound like she was blaming him; she just wanted to know.  
  
“Foolishness.”  
  
“It wasn’t all bad,” she said, trying to reassure him. “I mean, it was scary and I didn’t understand, but it was beautiful. My head doesn’t even hurt now.”  
  
“That’s good.”  
  
“Can I see it again sometime?”  
  
“It’s not ‘it.’ It’s me.” He had that carefully-blank look on his face. Rose couldn’t even guess what he was thinking.  
  
“Well, it’d be silly of me to say ‘Can I see you again sometime,’ wouldn’t it? I see you every day.” She smiled, poking her tongue out at him.  
  
“Rose…” He sighed. “The human mind’s not built to understand the way my mind’s set up. Not an insult, just a fact. But the human brain’s also very flexible. If we connect in that way more often, you’ll adapt. Your brain will change. And it’ll never change back.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Well, can you show me how to see mine, at least?”  
  
“I can’t show it to you without seeing it myself,” he said. “And there’s no way you can hide anything from me, not at that level of connection. I’ll see everything. I don’t think you want that.”  
  
“Oh.” Well, that was just about the most embarrassing thing she could imagine. “No, I don’t. But, wait, why don’t I know all your secrets now?”  
  
“I could comprehend all of your mind at once. You can’t do the same with mine.” He grinned. “You’ll notice that I am very carefully not insulting you.”  
  
“Yeah, you’re being a real hero,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him.  
  
“The things I do for you, Rose Tyler.”  
  
“Learning a lot about the things you do today,” she said, blushing a little. She hadn’t thought that kissing was a thing he did. Although she was pretty sure that from the outside, they would have made a very odd picture, sitting motionless with their lips together for however long it had been. Not exactly sensual.  
  
Still, though. She licked her lips and tasted tea and something she couldn’t identify, but wanted to think was the particular taste of Time Lord.  
  
“Full of surprises, me,” he said, his eyes on her lips.  
  
Rose ruined the moment with a jaw-cracking yawn.  
  
“You should get some sleep,” the Doctor said.  
  
“Yeah,” she agreed, standing up. After a brief hesitation, she bent to kiss his cheek, right at the corner of his mouth. “Good night.”  
  
“Good night,” he said softly, not moving as she turned and walked to her bedroom.


	7. Goodnight Kisses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place before the episode "Dalek."

He really shouldn’t have kissed her even once, but since he had and there was no way to undo it, kissing became a part of their regular routine. One tea-flavored kiss, just to make a connection while he helped her work through the day’s memories, and then one kiss that she would instigate before she went to bed.  
  
It was the second kiss that was dangerous. The first one was calm and controlled, like putting his fingers to her temples had been. It let him get close to her, inside her mind even, without making it seem like he  _wanted_  to get close to her. He was just a strange old alien, doing strange alien things.  
  
But the good-night kiss was becoming increasingly human. Sometime in the past week,  _tongues_  had become involved. Rose had been the one to start it, but he’d hardly pushed her away. And now a goodnight kiss with tongue, and their arms around each other, and her breasts pressed against his chest was a part of the routine.  
  
It was rather difficult to maintain an air of alien aloofness with Rose Tyler’s tongue in his mouth. And then she’d pull away, flushed and breathing heavily, smelling of pheromones and arousal, finish with a quick peck of her lips against his, and disappear into her bedroom.  
  
She seemed to feel that they had reached a sustainable equilibrium between her human desires and his supposed limitations as a non-human.  _What you’re asking for, I can’t give._  That’s what he’d said, and she’d taken it exactly how he’d intended her to, and now he was slowly going mad.  
  
Very slowly, though. He had excellent self-control. It would probably take at least a few decades of this for him to go entirely mad, and surely she’d have tired of him long before then. Going along with it and waiting her out probably wasn’t the best plan, but he was always better at improvising anyway.  
  
Adventuring in her company was fantastic. He could still see the wounds the Time War had left through time and space, but they were beginning to heal. The universe was really a remarkably resilient place, and the remaining paradoxes, with no one left to tend to them, were unraveling. He had already taken care of the major snarls, of course, which was good, because there was no way he would have brought Rose anywhere near one of those. She wasn’t even equipped to sense them properly.  
  
There was still plenty of work to be done, though. The universe’s resilience didn’t care one bit whether people or planets or civilizations were wiped out, conquered, or trapped in perpetual stone ages. He and Rose did. They toppled dictators, defused forgotten weapons, and scared off would-be invaders. Lots of great explosions, some thrilling last-minute escapes, lots and lots of running, and all of it with Rose holding his hand and laughing. As he watched the universe heal around him, the Doctor began to entertain the possibility for the first time since his regeneration that maybe ending the Time War had been worth it after all.  
  
He couldn’t explain how what they were doing was affecting the universe to Rose, because she didn’t have the senses to see/feel the timelines re-knitting around them. But when she stood beside him with her hand in his while all around them the little blue bipeds (who would someday manage an intergalactic trade network that would enable a decent bit of peace and understanding between more species than there were grains of sand on the beach) danced and sang with joy now that their food source was no longer being stolen by offworlders, he knew she didn’t need to know. She couldn’t sense the bigger picture, the previously-possible aeons of war and hatred drying up and blowing away in the time winds, but she grinned at him as if she got just as much happiness from this one little moment of joy on one little world.  
  
They stayed the evening with their little blue friends, drinking fermented fruit juice that Rose said tasted like a mix between a guava, a carrot, and a martini. She danced with them, a happy group dance that she didn’t really have enough limbs to do properly, but no one seemed to mind. The Doctor was content just to watch. There was so much concentrated happiness on that beach that he could almost taste it, and he fancied she was its center, the core and the essence of it. She was joy.  
  
The people of that planet were strictly diurnal, so the dance party ended sooner than either Rose or the Doctor felt like it ought to, and they were still grinning at each other and occasionally laughing at nothing in particular when they made their way back onto the TARDIS.  
  
“Tea?” the Doctor suggested.  
  
“Nah,” Rose said. “Don’t really need time to recover from that one. That one was a snap. First time I’ve ever seen anyone actually turn and run as soon as you say ‘Shadow Proclamation.’’”  
  
“It wasn’t quite that easy,” the Doctor protested. “We had to climb that whole mountain! And then get back down it again before those engines fried us.”  
  
“Yeah, but that’s easy, for us,” she said, poking her tongue out at him. “Only had weapons pointed at us for fifteen minutes or so. Practically a welcome mat.”  
  
“Suppose you’re right,” he acknowledged.  
  
“You really think they left for good? It almost seems too easy.”  
  
“I sent a message to the Shadow Proclamation,” he reminded her. “And they know I did. Shouldn’t be a problem.”  
  
“I always thought the Shadow Proclamation was a sort of a paper or something. Some sort of space constitution.”  
  
“No, it’s more of a space police force.”  
  
“Really? Sort of thought that was just us.” She slid her arms under his jacket and around him as she spoke, grinning up at him cheekily, and he froze. This was the first time she had touched him so intimately outside the settled confines of after-tea telepathy and bedtime kiss. The idea of every time becoming a time for touching, for closeness, for kissing, perhaps even for mental contact...he wanted it more than anything, but knew he wouldn’t be able to stand it.  
  
The smile on Rose’s face faded into concern, and he hated being the cause of that.  
  
“Sorry,” she said, stepping back.  
  
“It’s alright. So! No tea tonight, too early to sleep even for a human, too late to get caught up in something else...how about a pint?” He plastered on a smile that he knew perfectly well she’d see through, but she always seemed content to go along with it.  
  
“Sounds good to me,” she said. “How about that club we went to in the, what was it, 43rd century? The one with the cute bartender.”  
  
“All of space and time, and she asks for a cute bartender,” the Doctor groused halfheartedly.  
  
“Doctor, he looked like a panda bear! He was adorable.”  
  
They made it to the club Rose had asked for, but either it was the panda-like bartender’s night off or they were a few years off. Rose managed to console herself with several pints of hangoverproof lager, and with rather a different kind of dancing than she’d done earlier. The Doctor was largely immune to the appeal of such a strictly visual spectacle, of course. But it did carry with it the suggestion of a fully immersive sensory experience, so to speak.  
  
She moved on the dance floor the way she would move under him, over him, around him, if he only asked her to.  
  
There were others who watched her as well, human or human enough, but she politely declined invitations to dance with any of them. When she rejoined the Doctor at the bar, he asked her why.  
  
“They seem so...boring,” she said. “I mean, they’re in a club in the future on another world and all, but it’s just a club to them. I’m from another planet and centuries in the past, but they don’t know that, and they wouldn’t believe me if I told them. Almost feels dishonest, dancing with them.”  
  
“Now you know how I feel,” he said, and smiled at her, even though she didn’t know a hundredth part of it.  
  
Their goodnight kiss in front of Rose’s bedroom door was scorching. It continued until Rose let out an involuntary noise, which seemed to shock her into pulling away. She looked like she was about to apologize, but just gave him a smile and fled into her room.  
  
When the Doctor was young, he and another adventurous Time Lordling had explored the taboo physicality of sex together. They had both sworn to embrace sexuality and never to regret it, and he had kept that promise, even after everything had changed. Centuries later, he had gone beyond the merely taboo and into the forbidden by taking a human as a partner, and he had vowed to himself that he would honor that act and that man’s memory by never regretting it.  
  
Now that he had nowhere to turn, no options for release or relief, he was beginning to seriously test those promises. Things would have been much easier if he’d never known the feeling of hot skin under his fingers, the taste of sweat, the smell of strange, addictive human pheromones, the sound of a human in ecstasy. It was too easy for him to imagine intimacy with Rose Tyler, intimacy that he knew would harm her.


	8. Adam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place between "Dalek" and "The Long Game." Contains explicit sexual content.

“Everything alright?” Adam asked Rose when she walked into the room where she’d left him boggling over the TARDIS’ three-dimensional entertainment system.  
  
“Fine,” she said. She walked over to him with an extra sway in her step, loving how his eyes were drawn to her hips. The Doctor was never going to look at her like that. “I can help you find a bedroom now, unless you’re having too much fun in here.”  
  
 _“Doctor? Would it bother you if I had sex with Adam?”_  
  
“Uh, no, that, uh, sounds great,” he said. He wiped his palms against his pants and swallowed.  
  
“Good,” she said, and pressed her lips to his.  
  
 _“You don’t have to ask me for permission, Rose.”_  
  
The kiss was nothing like those she’d shared with the Doctor. Adam was stunned into stillness for a second, but soon his warm arms were around her and his wet tongue was in her mouth. He was a little overly greedy, pushing his mouth against hers a bit too hard, clutching her a bit too tightly, so different from the Doctor’s cold embraces and tentative lips. There was no sense of him in her mind, no mental connection, no shared feelings, just the humanity of physical contact.  
  
 _“I know that. I just wanted to know if it would bother you.”_  
  
She pushed Adam away with a teasing smile and walked out of the room, attempting to evoke the word “sashay” with the movements of her hips. Hearing him rush after her, panting, was incredibly gratifying.  
  
“This one’ll do,” she said at the first white door they came upon. It was one of the plain, hotel-style bedrooms on the TARDIS. Rose hopped onto the bed and checked the drawer in the bedstand. Condoms. Good old TARDIS.  
  
 _“You’re a human. You have needs. I wouldn’t change that, even if I could.”_  
  
Adam scrambled onto the bed after her, kicking off his shoes. His hands were hot and sweaty and greedy, grabbing at her breasts and her ass, sliding up under her shirt to fumble with her bra clasp. She pushed him off her and onto his back, then moved to straddle him, glorying in his awestruck expression.  
  
Rose’s shirt and bra soon hit the floor, followed by Adam’s shirt. She leaned forward to grind against him, to push her chest against his, to kiss and nip at his neck and feel his pulse pound.  
  
 _“Alright, well, as long as you know it’s just a bit of fun, yeah? You’re more important to me than he could ever be.”_  
  
Soon they were naked together, all hot flesh moving against hot flesh. Rose put the condom on him, noting as she did that he was a decent enough size, allowing herself for a moment to imagine that the smooth skin under her fingers was cold instead of--but the Doctor probably wasn’t even built like that, so there was no point thinking about it.  
  
 _His fingers on her temples instead of his lips on hers, for the first time in a long time._  
  
“Oh, God,” Adam gasped as he slid inside her.  
  
“Yes,” Rose hissed in response, raising her hips to meet his.  
  
His thrusts were desperate, uncoordinated, needy, and she loved being needed so much that this genius boy couldn’t string words together or even move properly.  
  
 _Feelings of understanding and affection flowing from him to her, far more clearly than words could have communicated them._  
  
“More, more, harder,” Rose moaned, and sweat dripped from Adam’s forehead and into her face. He was panting and gasping, so she pushed him off her to straddle him again, reached down and positioned him against her and slammed down, hard and fast.  
  
She knew from running at his side that the Doctor would have had more than enough stamina to--still no point in thinking about that.  
  
 _Her lips on the Doctor’s, delivering the passionate goodnight kiss that had become their custom._  
  
“Fuck!” Adam swore, digging his hands into Rose’s hips as he came. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”  
  
When she felt his muscles relax, she slid two fingers down around the base of his cock to hold the condom steady while she pulled off him. She hadn’t come, hadn’t really expected to, but it had been good. It was good to hear him panting, exhausted, beside her.  
  
 _His body stiffening in surprise, then relaxing against her, the gentle movements of his mouth and his hands at the small of her back, the familiarly alien taste of him._  
  
“You’re not staying?” Adam asked when Rose started pulling on clothes.  
  
“Nah, always sleep better alone,” she lied. “I’ll see you in the morning. We’ll go someplace exciting.”  
  
 _Brushing her teeth before going to find Adam, telling herself it was out of politeness but knowing that it was because she wanted to be the only human to know what Time Lord tasted like._  
  
Back in her own bed, Rose quickly brought herself to orgasm, aided by the lovely just-fucked feeling in her pussy and her thighs. She’d never been one for yelling names in bed, but when she came, it was with the image of ancient blue eyes in her mind.  
  
When Rose woke up, she showed Adam where he could find cold cereal and left him to it. She and the Doctor had some bagel-like pastries with a slightly gritty spread that tasted like a mix between lemon, blueberry, and shrimp, while sitting on a sunless planetoid with a panoramic view of two spiral galaxies in the process of merging.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know some people on Teaspoon hated this chapter...let me know if you do too! I mean, I'd prefer if you had more to say than just "I hated it," but I'd love to hear opinions. (And don't worry, if it's not obvious, the story overall is still Nine/Rose.)


	9. Reciprocity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place after the episode "Father's Day."

Rose Tyler was crying.  
  
The Doctor had seen her cry before, but never like this. Never with helpless, body-shaking sobs. She seemed to be having trouble getting enough air. It was almost as if being around the infant version of herself earlier had regressed her to a state of helplessness.  
  
He knew that wasn’t it, though. She’d just watched her father die.  
  
Gingerly, he sat beside her on the one chair in the console room and pulled her close. She collapsed into him, sobbing against his jumper. He wrapped both arms around her, stroked her hair, made soothing nonsense noises.  
  
“It’s alright, Rose,” he murmured. “Let it out, now. It’s alright to grieve.” He was such a hypocrite.  
  
Eventually her sobs slowed to little coughing hiccups and she pulled away enough that he could see her face, red and blotchy and shiny with tears and mucus.  
  
“I messed up your jumper,” she said.  
  
“Ah, plenty more where this came from,” he said, falsely cheerful. “I think you need a cuppa, what do you think? Could do with one myself.”  
  
“That thing ate you,” she whispered. “And it was all my fault.”  
  
“Well, no harm done. And you already said you’re sorry, so no need to go repeating yourself.” He stood up and pulled her gently to her feet. “Come on, now. Tea.”  
  
Rose gave him a shaky smile and followed him into the galley. Humans liked routine and ritual, found it comforting. The heating of the water, the steeping of the teabag, the addition of milk and sugar, it was a bulwark against a vast and uncontrollable universe. He had taken her away from a life made of such routines, but he could give her this one, at least.  
  
“What were your parents like?” Rose asked. The Doctor choked on his mouthful of tea. She hadn’t asked about his people in ages, had apparently gotten the message that he really did not want to talk about it.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she said while he coughed. “I didn’t mean to pry. I was just wondering if you ever go back in time to see them.”  
  
“Time War’s not just a name, Rose,” the Doctor said when he’d recovered. “There’s no going back to before it. As far as the universe is concerned, my people never existed.”  
  
“Oh. I...I’m sorry.”  
  
“Reasonable enough thing to wonder,” he allowed.  
  
They drank their tea in silence for a while. Rose’s face returned to its normal color, although her eyes were still puffy and red. Her cheeks were dry, but smeared with mascara. It made her look very young, like a child who’d clumsily experimented with her mother’s cosmetics.  
  
“I’m going to go wash my face,” she said, setting down her empty mug. “After that, can we, you know?”  
  
“Of course,” the Doctor said. He finished his tea while he waited for Rose to return.  
  
“Is there a better word for it than ‘you know’?” she asked when she came back in, face clean-scrubbed. “The telepathy part, I mean, not the kissing. I’d just feel a bit weird asking you to pencil me in on your kissing schedule.”  
  
“No fear, that schedule’s nothing but vacancies,” he said drily. “Call it mind-touch. It’s a close enough analogue.”  
  
“Touch my mind, then, Doctor,” she said, situating herself comfortably next to him and pressing her lips to his.  
  
She had become so very skilled at sending feelings to him. As soon as her mouth touched him, so did her mind, and he felt how very glad she was that he was alive and with her. Without conscious thought, he reached his arms and his mind out and clung to her, creating an empathic feedback loop. Feelings of closeness and relief reverberated between them, growing stronger by the second until Rose pulled back, overwhelmed.  
  
Her face was red again, and she was breathing hard, but there were no tears in her eyes.  
  
“What was that?” she asked. “That was...intense.”  
  
The Doctor gave her a strained smile, mentally flailing a bit to find a better answer than ‘that was the telepathic equivalent of second base.’  
  
“Humans and Time Lords don’t have all the same emotional responses,” he said, settling on a partial truth. “Being glad someone’s alive carries a lot more weight with a species that lives for millenia.”  
  
“Well, I meant it,” Rose said. “I hope you live thousands more years.”  
  
Returning the sentiment would just remind him that she didn’t have thousands of years in her, so he kissed her instead, combining a human-style kiss of lips and tongue with a mental touch.  
  
 _The universe is better because it includes you,_  he felt to her.  
  
She began to respond in kind, but before they could start another loop that would lead to things she wasn’t ready for (wouldn’t ever be ready for), he pulled back, easing her into the trance state in which she could sort through the day’s memories.  
  
It was harder than usual, and took longer. The grief and loss was much more personal this time, tied to all the memories and pain of growing up without a father. Even after they had finished, she clung to his mental presence. When he tried to ease out of her, she followed him into his own mind, and he hastily called up the schema of the library, to keep things comprehensible for her.  
  
 _It’s really beautiful in your mind,_  she thought to him.  _I could stay here forever.  
  
You will be here forever,_ he replied.  _Already got a whole section dedicated to you. Memories of Rose Tyler._  
  
She sent him a wordless wave of affection, and he greedily drank it in.  
  
 _Hang on, why’s that still out?_  she asked, sending him concern.  
  
The Doctor winced. Her self-image had bumped into an imposing-looking book left out on the floor. It manifested with a black leather cover on which embossed red letters spelled out “Last of the Daleks.”  
  
 _Is that from when we were in Utah? Why haven’t you put it away yet? That must’ve been weeks ago._  
  
In fact, two and a half months of subjective time had passed since Adam had left the ship, but he didn’t feel that mentioning that would be helpful at the moment.  
  
 _It’s complicated,_  he said.  
  
 _How is it complicated? Can I help?_  She picked up the book, holding it under one arm, and with her other arm took his hand.  _Show me where it goes._  
  
Before he could stop it, the mental library shifted around them, and one of the nearby bookshelves became a door. Unlike the door to his deeper self, this one was wrapped in chains and padlocks and everything else he had been able to think of as a symbol of closing. There was a character on the door, a relatively simple one for the complex written language of the Time Lords, just a few precisely-placed circles and a line.  
  
He sighed, and willed it to change into English for Rose. “The Last Great Time War.”  
  
 _It’s all...in there? The whole war?_  she asked.  
  
 _Yes.  
  
But Doctor, isn’t that what you told me not to do with my bad memories? Lock them up like that?  
  
Yes._  
  
Neither of them said anything for a moment, and he was grateful for it. If she asked any more questions, he was going to have to either lie outright (difficult through a mental link, though not impossible) or use some words he’d really rather not think.  
  
 _What happens if you open the door?  
  
Sort of afraid to find out,_ he admitted reluctantly.  
  
 _But you’re going to have to eventually, yeah? Might as well get it over with, while you’ve got me here to help.  
  
You couldn’t help,_ he snapped.  _It’d burn you up.  
  
You said you didn’t know what would happen.  
  
I don’t know what’d happen to me. I know what would happen to a human anywhere near it.  
  
Well, what if you made a sort of...valve, or something? Let it out a bit at a time and start shelving it properly._  
  
That was, in fact, the recommended way to deal with this sort of built-up trauma. It was also impossible to do without help. Under normal circumstances, it’d be mad to try to deal with this much of a build-up without the assistance of another Time Lord, and a specialist at that. Of course, if these were normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have that trauma in the first place.  
  
 _Well, I couldn’t do that without help,_  he admitted.  _And before you ask, you couldn’t help. Not without a lot of preparation, including changing the way your mind works, which you didn’t want to do.  
  
I didn’t want to change the way my brain works just so I could ogle yours,_ she said. He could feel the sincerity in her.  _But if it means I can help you, then yeah, of course I’ll do it._  
  
There was an echo under her words, a feeling that he knew she hadn’t consciously intended to send him:  _I’d do anything for you.  
  
Even if you do, you might not be able to help me. I mean, directly. In here. You already help me, you know.  
  
I’m so glad. And I want to try._ Certainty and devotion flowed from her.  
  
Unable to form words, the Doctor sent her back a wave of appreciation, and caused their metaphorical surroundings to rearrange themselves once again. Now they were in front of the door that led to a deeper layer of his psyche.  
  
 _So I just...go in again?_  Rose asked.  
  
 _You’re going to want to try to be as passive as you can, for now,_  he told her.  _Don’t try to latch onto any one thing, or it’ll pull you around. And don’t try to take in everything. It’s too much for you. Try not to even think about it much, if you can. Just sort of accept it.  
  
Shouldn’t be too hard, accepting it,_ Rose said.  _I mean, it’s you._  She opened the door and stepped confidently inside.  
  
The Doctor trailed behind her, a passive observer. He didn’t have much control over what parts of him she picked up, this deep inside. All he could do was steer the isolated, blacklit strand of his mind that was the Time War as far away from her as possible.  
  
 **the sound of the TARDIS dematerializing -- the word “UNIT” -- the feel of a wool scarf around his neck -- the sensation of a timeline falling into place -- the taste of celery -- the exact function of a particular button on the TARDIS console --**  
  
She didn’t panic or cry like she had last time, but he knew she shouldn’t stay there for long. He couldn’t get comfortable with her presence deep inside him. There was no way she was ready for that.  
  
Gently, he moved her consciousness back into her physical being, and changed their kiss from a telepathic conduit to something a bit more human before breaking it entirely.  
  
“Was that alright?” he asked.  
  
“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, it was still overwhelming, but what you said helped. And you’re...wow. I mean, in your mind. It’s beautiful.” She blushed endearingly, and the Doctor swallowed hard.  
  
“Well, of course it is,” he said. “Genius that I am, and all.”  
  
“Right, of course,” Rose said with a roll of her eyes.  
  
“Anyway. You should probably get some sleep. It’s been a long day.”  
  
“Yeah, it has been. Walk me to my room?”  
  
Hand in hand, they walked the short distance to Rose’s bedroom. She turned towards him in front of her door, pressing her lips to his with unaccustomed gentleness. It felt less like she was trying to devour him and more like she was savoring something precious. Lazy waves of affection and gratitude and trust bounced back and forth between them.  
  
The Doctor reminded himself that she didn’t know what it did to him, the emotional closeness and the way she’d been inside his mind. He hadn’t told her that her efforts to help him were the Time Lord equivalent of heavy petting. To her, it wasn’t sexual, just...nice. It was probably wrong of him not to let her know.  
  
He held himself tightly in check, did his best to match the gentle slowness of her kiss, and bid her good night. When she’d gone into her room, he rested his hand on the door for a moment before heading to the console room to decide where to take her for breakfast next.


	10. Jack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place just after "The Doctor Dances." This chapter contains explicit sex. Rose/Jack (sorta).

Rose was giddy, absolutely giddy. Adrenaline and champagne and everybody lived and dancing, dancing with Jack, dancing with the Doctor, and all the crooning words to every song sounded to her like “Everybody lives” and “You just assume I don’t... _dance_.”  
  
The Doctor and Jack had danced together a few times, but mostly they’d passed her back and forth between them, and it was like she’d died and gone to heaven. When Jack ran off to the galley to grab another bottle of champagne, the Doctor pulled her close and kissed her thoroughly, and she thought the joy she was feeling and the joy he was sending to her would make her heart burst.  
  
He pulled back and smiled at her, that dear, daffy smile, and it took her a minute to realize that he was talking, and that what he was saying was “Good night, Rose.”  
  
“Good night?” she repeated, confused.  
  
“Thought I’d give you some time with the captain.”  
  
“...oh.” She had almost thought...but no, she knew he didn’t do that sort of thing. Kissing, yes; touching, yes; dancing, apparently yes; but that was all.  
  
There wasn’t much she could say, so she kissed him instead, recklessly projecting the love that she felt for him. He wasn’t a human and he couldn’t give her human things and that was fine, more than fine. She loved his non-humanness.  
  
 _If I have to pick, someday, I’m picking you,_  she told him.  _You or all the captains in the world, I pick you._  
  
He pulled back and looked at her so tenderly, squeezed her hand once, and strode out of the console room, whistling along to the song that was still playing.  
  
“Bubbles!” Jack announced enthusiastically. “Hey, where’d our fearless leader get to?”  
  
“Think it was getting a little too human in here for him,” Rose said, shaking off the lingering bittersweetness. “Looks like the rest of my dance card’s yours, Captain Jack.”  
  
“Delighted, Miss Tyler,” Jack said, flashing her that dazzling grin.  
  
They came together easily for another dance, his hands gently guiding her into the perfect position for a comfortable embrace that was just a little bit more. She was so used to feeling the Doctor against her that Jack’s human heat felt startling, even feverish.  
  
That comparison led to another: smell. The Doctor always smelled alluringly alien, like an unsolved mystery, a new world she desperately wanted to explore. Jack, on the other hand...he smelled human. Not like pit sweat or anything; there was just something in his smell that screamed “virile human male” in a way that seemed to bypass her brain and hit her directly in the g-spot.  
  
“Now, I’d love to get between you and the Doctor,” Jack breathed in her ear, “but only in the completely literal sense.”  
  
“It’s complicated with us,” Rose said. “But you being around isn’t going to make it any more complicated.”  
  
“Well, that’s good. Now, let me think...you said you’re from the early 21st, right?”  
  
“2005, yeah. Why?”  
  
“Trying to get the idioms right! Let me see, I’m pretty sure the question is...your place or mine? Or are we past that? Want to slip into something more comfortable?” He was grinning, and he was charming, and he felt so warm against her, and before she had a chance to think about whether maybe she should run and brush her teeth first, she was kissing him.  
  
He was an excellent kisser, no hesitation at all, just moving his mouth on hers with a speed perfectly balanced between methodical and urgent. When his teeth scraped teasingly against her lip, she gasped, leaning into him for support.  
  
“My place, I think,” she whispered when he’d released her lips. She gave him a teasing smile and grabbed his hand, pulling him down the hall to her bedroom.  
  
For a while, Rose existed in a lovely champagne-flavored blur of sensation. Her world was Jack’s mouth, Jack’s skin, Jack’s practiced hands and teasing voice. They both shed their clothes, fumbling and laughing and kissing.  
  
By the time they were naked together on her bed, she could feel that she was wet to halfway down her thighs, and could see that Jack’s beautifully proportioned cock was hard and ready. He slid two fingers into her and leaned down over her, his breath warm in her ear.  
  
“Tell me what you want, Rose,” he commanded, voice rough. “Tell me exactly what you need.”  
  
“Need you to fuck me,” she gasped, bucking against his hand. “Need your cock.”  
  
“How do you want it?”  
  
“Just do it!”  
  
“Nope,” he refused cheerfully, glancing his thumb across her clit. She clamped down around his fingers in response. “Not until you tell me exactly what you want.”  
  
“Tease.”  
  
“Absolutely.”  
  
“I want you to push my legs up around my ears and give it to me hard and fast,” Rose ground out. “Specific enough for you?”  
  
“Give you what?”  
  
“This!” She reached out and grabbed his cock, and he gasped in a very gratifying way. “Wait, shit, let me find a condom.”  
  
“You can if it makes you feel better, but I’ve got a bodymod that sterilizes my semen. No microorganisms, no viable sperm.”  
  
“What, seriously?” They probably should have had this conversation before they were naked together on a bed with their hands on or in one another’s genitals, Rose realized.  
  
“Yep. Wouldn’t want to spread anything around, or become my own grandpa. Anyway, if I’m lying, I’m sure the Doctor could fix anything I could give you. But if you’d be more comfortable--”  
  
“Nah, don’t worry about it.” She grinned up at him, surprised by how comfortable she felt being naked with him even with their momentum lost. “Where were we?”  
  
“Well,” he drawled, “I was about to ask you how you’d like me to make you come.”  
  
“Depends. Have you got a bodymod that vibrates?”  
  
“Nope,” Jack said. He sounded regretful. “Too conspicuous in the past.”  
  
“Then I want you to fuck me hard and fast with my legs in the air until you come, then finger my clit until I do. Specific enough?” She stuck her tongue out at him.  
  
“Perfect.”  
  
Rose didn’t even have time to miss his fingers inside her before his warm, strong hands had grabbed her by the thighs and pulled her firmly towards him. Jack pushed her legs back until her knees were by her ears, his eyes gleaming with appreciation for her flexibility. With one perfectly-aimed thrust (how the hell did he learn to do that hands-free?) he was inside her, and both of them closed their eyes and moaned.  
  
After a moment of stillness, he began to move inside her, and she’d asked for hard and fast, so that was what she got. What she had meant but hadn’t said was that she needed it intense, needed it to drive all thought out of her mind. That was what she got, too.  
  
She was just coherent enough to recognize that Jack was really, really good. His strokes were long and regular and just shy of being painful, and all Rose could do was hang on and clench around him. They panted into each others’ mouths, and he was almost too good, almost controlled enough that she thought he couldn’t be enjoying it, but one look at his flushed and strained face told her otherwise.  
  
Then his thrusts slowed, became uneven, and his head was thrown back, and she could feel him coming inside her. She hadn’t had sex without a condom in ages, and feeling his bare skin pulsing and the rush of his cum inside her felt forbidden and delicious.  
  
Still trembling with aftershocks, he gently lowered her legs to a more natural position, then collapsed against her, breathing hard against her neck.  
  
“So,” she asked when she’d caught her breath, “How do I measure up to your 51st century standards?”  
  
Jack laughed, and lifted himself up to meet her eyes.  
  
“You can make my day any century you like,” he said, and kissed her. Then he pulled out of her and rolled over onto his back. “Let me catch my breath a minute, and then I’ll take care of you.”  
  
“You don’t have to do everything I wanted,” she said, slightly self-conscious. “I mean, what do you want?”  
  
“Believe me, there is nothing I like better than convincing a gorgeous sophont to tell me exactly what they want, and then filling it to the letter.” He propped himself up on one elbow, grinning down at her. “Making you come will be my pleasure.”  
  
“Well. Can’t really argue with that.”  
  
It was several more hours before they finally fell asleep in a sweaty tangle of limbs.


	11. The Birds and the Bees and the Time Lords

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place after the episode "Boom Town."

Most of the time, the Doctor was glad to have Jack on board. Really, at least 80% of the time. He was helpful, he had an appreciation for tech, and he made Rose happy. The only downside was that quiet time with Rose and tea had turned into loud time with Jack and Rose and mixed drinks.  
  
“C’mon, Doc. Alcohol may not affect you, but there’s got to be something that gets you a little tipsy.” Jack was smiling that look-at-me-I’m-so-charming grin of his as he needled the Doctor. “Every sophont’s got a substance.”  
  
“That a slogan or something?” Rose asked. “Sounds like some sort of marketing.”  
  
“Well, yeah, there was a hypervodka brewery that was using that in its ads for a while. But the point still stands!” Jack gestured emphatically with his glass, which contained a drink he’d taken to calling a ‘sonic screwdriver,’ a mix of blue curaçao and hypervodka that would’ve been hell on his liver if it wasn’t full of nanogenes. “Only ninety percent of sophonts who think enough like humans for cultural joining like sex, but one hundred percent like getting wasted.”  
  
“What do the others do?” Rose asked, curious. “Divide or something?”  
  
“Nah, they still have something like sex, they just don’t like it as much,” Jack explained. “Almost anyone who’s enough like a human that we can form joint societies reproduces sexually, but the ones in the ten percent do it like fish or trees, just spreading around their genes when it’s mating season and hoping they bump into some compatible ones.”  
  
The Doctor was not in favor of the way this conversation was moving, but he was quite certain that if he interjected, he would only draw attention to himself.  
  
“How many of the lot that have sex are compatible with humans?” Rose asked.  
  
Yep, there it was, exactly the question he was hoping she wouldn’t ask.  
  
“Depends on what you mean by compatible.” Jack was speaking animatedly, clearly passionate about the topic. “None of them can reproduce with humans without getting some serious tech involved, of course, but as long as you’re open-minded and willing to take turns, just about any two sophonts can reach some kind of mutual gratification. On the other hand, there are some species that mate for life, some that only have completely casual sex, some that only go into heat once every two years, or once in their lives...there’s compatible and then there’s compatible, you know?”  
  
There was a pause, and the two humans both gave the Doctor speculative glances.  
  
“So, Doc…” Jack started.  
  
“I’m not going to be able to convince you to drop it, am I?” the Doctor asked drily.  
  
“Nope!” Jack said cheerfully. Rose remained silent, but he could see the question in her eyes.  
  
“Even if I tell you what’ll get me drunk instead?”  
  
“You might manage to get me to drop it until I’ve got you drunk.”  
  
“Fine.” He sighed, and looked up at the ceiling. “Total psyche exchange.”  
  
“Wait, what?” Jack asked, suddenly sounding serious. Almost nervous, in fact. “What does that have to do with sex?”  
  
“For most people, nothing. For  _my_  people, everything.”  
  
“What does that mean?” Rose asked. “Total psychic exchange?”  
  
“Psyche. I showed you that before, Rose. Past the library. In Jack’s time, they call that the psyche.” He kept his voice dry, trying to make this unavoidable conversation a clinical lecture. “The reason that so many sophonts that are similar to humans are willing and able to have sex with humans is that you’re all social animals, and in social animals, sex tends to serve a dual purpose: reproduction and community cohesion. Even when there’s no reproductive potential, the act can still bring people closer together. For a lot of telepathic species, sex can have a telepathic component. For Time Lords, there’s no ‘can’; it has to.  
  
“My ancestors weren’t tribal like your lot; they tended to gather in groups of no more than six, and spend portions of their lives completely alone. So sex was less about pleasure and more about forming a strong and lasting bond between two people. And sometimes about conflict resolution, but that’s the same in your species’ evolutionary history. Anyway, all that is to say that for Time Lords, the most important part of sex is completely exchanging psyches. Temporarily becoming each other. And a human brain can’t fit a Time Lord psyche inside it.”  
  
Rose and Jack stared at him.  
  
“But you must be able to do  _something_ ,” Jack said finally.  
  
“If you absolutely must have all the details,” the Doctor snapped, “the psyche exchange is an inextricable part of orgasm. All right? Can we stop talking about this now?”  
  
“So you mean it’s been years since you’ve been able to--”  
  
“Stop it, Jack,” Rose said. “Let’s talk about something else, yeah?”  
  
Rose redirected the conversation to less dangerous topics, like the weird smell at the hatchery on Raxacoricofallapatorius and the actual meaning of “cheesy” in early 21st century slang. Eventually, Jack gave Rose a kiss on the cheek and left the galley for his room. He always gave the Doctor and Rose a few moments together in the evening, which went a long way towards keeping the Doctor from resenting the fact that Rose ended up joining him more often than she slept alone. He wasn’t sure whether she knew that he knew that.  
  
“I’m sorry he pushed you,” Rose said.  
  
“Ah, knew it’d happen sooner or later,” the Doctor said without meeting her eyes. “Good to clear the air.”  
  
“So...when we do the mind-touch thing…”  
  
“It’s not necessarily...like that,” he told her. “It’s like kissing. You kiss Jack, you kiss your mum. It means different things with different people.”  
  
“I don’t kiss you like I kiss my mum,” she pointed out, wrinkling her nose at the off-putting comparison.  
  
“But you get what I mean.”  
  
“Yeah.” She hesitated. “But when you touch my mind, what sort is it?”  
  
“I touch your mind the way you kiss me,” he admitted.  
  
“And when I’m in your, your psyche?”  
  
“It...feels good, having you there.” That was the understatement of the millenium. He hoped she wouldn’t think less of him for not having mentioned that earlier.  
  
“I’m glad.” She smiled at him. “Is there anything else I could do that would make you feel good?”  
  
“Rose Tyler,” he said, and impulsively went over and gathered her into his arms. “That’s not the right question to ask. You want to know what the right question is?”  
  
“Of course,” she said, leaning into his embrace.  
  
“The right question is, is there anything I can do that would make you feel good.” He could tell she was about to protest, but when he touched his lips to the side of her neck, she shuddered and fell silent. “And the answer is yes, I can. If you want me to.”  
  
“Doctor,” she murmured. He could feel her human-hot skin, taste sweat and pheromones where his mouth touched her neck, smell vodka and arousal and Rose Tyler. She’d only had two drinks, and they’d just been regular screwdrivers, not enough to impair her judgement. “You mean you want to…?”  
  
“You can’t touch me, Rose,” he said, trying to make her understand. If she touched him and he lost control, he’d burn her mind. Even if he managed to keep his control, it would just be an exercise in frustration. “It’ll just...I can’t. But I can touch you. If you want.”  
  
“Doctor,” she said, but her voice was sad and she was pulling away from him. “You don’t have to do that for me. Not if I can’t do anything for you. I’ve got Jack, remember?”  
  
“Right. Jack.”  
  
“Not that...I mean…” She took a deep breath. “Doctor, if you wanted me, if we could be together like that, I’d do it in a second, all right? But I don’t want you doing things for me that I can’t do for you. I don’t want to be a chore.”  
  
“You? Never.”  
  
She kissed him then, projecting trust and glad-you’re-alive and need, and before he could stop himself he was reflecting it back. A part of him realized that she was doing it on purpose, intentionally sending him the feelings that had made his control waver before, but it didn’t matter. The feelings were real and they were perfect and Rose was there in his arms, beautiful and willing--no, more than willing, needy. She needed him in her mind and in her body.  
  
Without any conscious decision on his part, he pulled her towards him so that she was straddling his lap. She reflexively tried to pull back and gasp when she felt him hard against her, but he growled into her mouth and clutched the back of her head, his fingers tangled in her hair as he continued to kiss her hungrily. Her mind was there, not her bedroom visualization but the real core of her, open and inviting and--  
  
Not. His.  
  
He tore his mouth from hers and pushed her away, realizing too late that she’d fall to the floor when he did so.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he rasped, then stood and all but ran out of the room.


	12. Confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place immediately after the previous one, for once.

Rose sat on the floor for a while, a bit stunned by the events of the previous few minutes. The Doctor had offered to...and then she’d...and then he’d…  
  
The only conclusion she felt she could draw with confidence was that whatever it was he kept in his jeans, it certainly felt human enough to be getting by with. So that was one longstanding mystery solved.  
  
Would it be crass of her to go to Jack for advice and comfort? He was the expert on interspecies relations, after all. Maybe he could help her figure out why the Doctor had just dropped her on her arse.  
  
And then maybe he could shag her to within an inch of her life. That’d be nice, too. It was really very inconsiderate of the Doctor to get her this worked up and then just run off.  
  
Seeing Jack’s door always made her grin, because she’d made a sign that said “Captain’s Quarters” in magenta glitter glue (it was amazing what you could find, poking around the TARDIS) and taped it there. The Doctor snorted like a bad-tempered donkey every time he saw it.  
  
Not bothering to knock, Rose stepped into Jack’s bedroom and flopped down onto the bed beside him with a sigh.  
  
“Wasn’t sure I’d be seeing you tonight,” he commented. “You okay?”  
  
“You know, sometimes my mum used to say that men were aliens,” she said. “She doesn’t know how good she’s got it, not having to deal with men who are also  _actual aliens_. One minute he’s got me on his lap, and I’m almost sure that wasn’t a banana in his pocket, and the next he’s running out of the room.”  
  
“Rosie, you’ve got to be careful,” Jack said, looking concerned. “There aren’t a lot of species that are telepathic enough to make a total psyche exchange, and I’ve never heard of it happening involuntarily, but if that’s really a part of sex for him...well, I wouldn’t do it, and that’s saying something.”  
  
“Really? Why not?”  
  
“Aside from the part where having the Doc crammed into my brain would probably make it come oozing out my ears? He’d be able to see everything about me. Every secret, every embarrassing memory, every stupid thought I didn’t really mean. He’d come out of it understanding me even better than I do myself. Close is nice, but there’s such a thing as too close.”  
  
Rose snuggled up to Jack, wrapping an arm around him. His face had gone a bit distant, and she knew it was an act of trust from him to even let her see that there were parts of himself he kept apart. The moment passed, and he put his arm around her as well, smiling down at her with that movie star grin.  
  
“I wouldn’t mind that,” Rose said, surprising herself. “Not if it was the Doctor.”  
  
“To each their own,” Jack said. “Anyway, that still leaves the brain-oozing-out-your-ears problem. Might be he pushed you away because if he gets too carried away, pop! goes the Rosie.”  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
“Tell you what, I’ll stay on the TARDIS for breakfast tomorrow and you can talk to him about it then. What do you think?”  
  
“I’m not sure he’ll want to talk about it.”  
  
“Can’t hurt to ask.”  
  
“Mm.” It seemed like everything was so simple to Jack. When she’d first asked him whether it bothered him that she’d be in the Doctor’s bed instead of his if she had a chance, he’d laughed a touch condescendingly at her backwards 21st-century ways, then hugged her and said she was his friend and he hoped she’d get that chance.  
  
Not wanting to think about it any longer, Rose pressed her lips to Jack’s neck and ran her fingers down his chest to find a nipple. He gladly went along with her change in mood, and helped her push her confusion about the Doctor out of her mind for the night.  
  
True to his word, Jack grabbed some coffee and cold cereal in the galley the next morning after they showered, leaving Rose to find out where they’d landed on her own. The Doctor was in the console room, running his hand over levers and buttons like a caress.  
  
“Hello,” she said.  
  
“Hello.” His face was guarded.  
  
“Jack decided to stay in. Just you and me this morning. Where are we?”  
  
“Earth, Carboniferous era. Watch out for insects. Jack feeling all right?”  
  
“Yeah, he’s fine.”  
  
Rose and the Doctor went outside into the misty forest, and Rose gawked at their surroundings while the Doctor set up breakfast. Some of the plants around them looked more like seaweed than trees, and a dragonfly-ish insect that looked more than half a meter long flew by overhead.  
  
“This is Earth?” she asked.  
  
“Yup! About three hundred million years before the shops open, but I’ve brought some eggs and toast.” He grinned at her amazement.  
  
Rose hugged him enthusiastically, but there was something unusually cautious in the way he hugged her in return, and he broke it quickly to busy himself with the food. She poured two mugs of tea while he sorted out the purple-shelled eggs and what appeared to be entirely normal Earth toast.  
  
They ate in silence for a while.  
  
“Strange not to hear birds,” Rose commented.  
  
“Oh, much too early for birds,” the Doctor said. “There’s fish in the ocean, and plenty of amphibians, but really this is the invertebrates’ world still.”  
  
“Well, they could work on their singing, then.”  
  
The Doctor laughed.  
  
“Doctor, will you tell me what happened last night?” That was the way to do it, Rose figured. Hit him with it while he was in a good mood, and when he couldn’t run without being rude.  
  
“Thought most of it was pretty self-explanatory,” the Doctor muttered.  
  
“Well, yeah, but not the telepathy stuff. And…” she hesitated. “And I don’t understand why you ran. Did I do something wrong?”  
  
“Not...wrong, exactly,” he said. He wasn’t meeting her eyes, and...was he actually blushing? “You just didn’t realize what you were doing.”  
  
“The telepathic version of sticking my hand down your trousers?” Rose asked. The Doctor choked. “That's what I figured. I knew what I was doing.”  
  
“But I just told you why we can’t!”  
  
“Yeah,” Rose said. “But I want to. I want you to see into my mind, and I want to see into yours. I want to do everything, Doctor. Absolutely everything. What’s the worst that could happen?”  
  
“I’ll know everything about you. No secrets. No hiding.”  
  
“I don’t want to hide from you.”  
  
“And you’ll see everything that’s in my mind, Rose. The war. Losing my people. Everything. You won’t remember it all after, but you’ll feel it. I can’t protect you from it.”  
  
“I don’t care,” Rose said. She couldn’t fool herself into thinking she wasn’t afraid, but wasn’t that what she did? Go after things that scared her? “I want to know you like that. And I know you want me to.”  
  
“I’m not going to traumatize you just so I can have a shag!”  
  
“You can’t tell me it’d just be a shag to you. It wouldn’t be to me.”  
  
“That’s not the point,” he grumbled.  
  
“I think it is.” Rose stood up from the table and slid onto the Doctor’s lap. Her nerves were humming, the possibility that he would push her away adding to the thrill of it. He didn’t.  
  
“Rose,” he said, sliding his arms around her so carefully he almost convinced her that she was fragile.  
  
She put her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his.  
  
 _See me, Doctor. I want you to see all the way to the heart of me, and know that I love you, and I am not afraid._  
  
There were no words to describe how he felt inside her mind, not in English; the best she could do was compare. It was like telling a secret you’d never told before, and finding that the person who heard it understood you perfectly. It was like snickering at a private joke, and meeting a stranger’s eye and finding that he was laughing too. It was like being put under a microscope by something impossibly huge and unimaginably greater than she was, and realizing that the godlike observer above her thought she was beautiful and important and fantastic.  
  
And then he pulled away, slowly, gently, almost hesitantly. He broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers, breathing raggedly.  
  
“You’re beautiful,” he said hoarsely. “Rose...I can’t even begin to tell you what you give me.”  
  
“Why’d you stop?” she asked.  
  
“Because I just wanted to do that, and not have to worry about hurting you. That alright?”  
  
“Oh. Yeah.” Rose snuggled closer to him, nestling her face against his neck. “I liked it.”  
  
“I know,” he said, with something like awe in his voice. “Oh, Rose. I could feel it.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
They sat there together in the warm prehistoric air for a long time.


	13. Bad Wolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place during the two-parter "Bad Wolf"/"The Parting of the Ways." It contains graphic sexual content.

There was nothing else quite like the sensation of running your hands through dust that, as far as you knew, was all that was left of the person you cared about more than just about anything. The fact that Rose hadn’t actually died couldn’t retroactively erase the shock of that moment or the feeling of rough-grained grey dust, almost sand, too dry to stick to his fingers, in the place where Rose Tyler had stood an instant before.  
  
When he’d realized that she was still alive--and he’d been so numb he needed Jack to spell it out for him bit by bit--the joy of it was almost too much to take. And now she was not only alive but with him, sitting beside him stripping wires to help him build a machine that would kill her.  
  
The fact that it would kill him as well hardly mattered. He couldn’t save himself, couldn’t save Jack or Lynda or the Earth, but he had to save Rose.  
  
“Is the Delta wave going to build in time, Doctor?” she asked.  
  
“Yes,” he told her, not mentioning the fact that there wasn’t time to fine-tune it to only kill Daleks. “All we can do now is wait.”  
  
“We could go help Jack--”  
  
“No. We have to be ready when it’s time to set the wave off. Should be about ten minutes.” How was he going to get her to stay on the TARDIS while he sent it off? Maybe he could convince her she needed to hold down a button, or get her to wander deep inside...  
  
“Ten minutes, great. It’s going to feel like forever, but it’s still too short to do anything useful.”  
  
“Well, I wouldn’t want to risk trying to make it shorter,” he said, a plan coalescing. “But we could make it longer. We could get on the TARDIS, hop into the vortex for a little while, and come right back a minute after we left.”  
  
“And, what, just sit around drinking tea knowing what we’re coming back to? No, ta.”  
  
“Rose…” He reached out to gently touch her hair. “It’s going to be a near thing. I’m not going to lie to you, it’ll be dangerous. You remember how bad facing one dalek was. None of us may make it through this. Before that, well, since we have a chance...I wouldn’t want to regret leaving anything undone.”  
  
“You mean…?” Rose’s eyes were wide as she realized what he was saying. “Really?”  
  
“If you like.” He tried not to feel horrendously guilty. She knew exactly what he was suggesting, and all of the likely consequences. If she didn’t realize that she’d probably be incapacitated for a while afterwards and that he’d have the perfect opportunity to leave her on the TARDIS and send it back to her own time, well, that was hardly the worst thing he’d done. Sending her home wasn’t a bad thing at all. Having sex with her first... even he was entitled to a last request, wasn’t he? And it wasn’t taking advantage. She knew what she was getting into, and she’d been asking for it from day one.  
  
Rose was quiet while he dematerialized the TARDIS. Safe in the Vortex, everything on hold, even the approaching dalek fleet. For a moment, the two of them just looked at each other across the console room. Then they both spoke at the same time.  
  
“We don’t---” “You don’t--”  
  
The Doctor chuckled wryly and rubbed his face.  
  
“Didn’t mean to put you on the spot like this, Rose. Or either of us, really. We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want.”  
  
“I was going to say the same thing to you,” Rose said. “You don’t have to do anything just because it might be our last chance to.”  
  
“Right. Well. I can just take us back, if you like.” He’d have to come up with another way to send her back to her mother.  
  
“You can if you want. But don’t do it for me.” Suddenly, she moved around the console, removing all the unwanted space between them and wrapping her arms around his waist under his jacket. “You know I’ve wanted you since day one. Say no if you like, but don’t pretend you don’t know what I want.”  
  
He couldn’t not kiss her.  
  
It was so easy to sink into her mind, the connection between them a well-worn path by now. There was the poignant bittersweetness of fear mixed with courage, the steel of her faith in him and her determination to do good, and overwhelming all the rest, the heady rush of her affection.  
  
She wanted him, he knew beyond a doubt. Wanted him alive, wanted him near her, wanted him as close to her as possible.  
  
They stumbled towards her bedroom together, alternately kissing and laughing with joy. At one point, she stumbled over his feet while trying to walk and kiss at the same time, so he scooped her up in his arms and carried her the rest of the way.  
  
When they got to her bedroom, he kicked open the door unceremoniously and laid her down on the bed, trying to kiss and feel and mind-touch her everywhere at once. She was giving back as good as she gave, his precious girl, pushing at the shoulders of his jacket and pressing up against him.  
  
The Doctor pulled back to let Rose push off his jacket and his jumper, then unzipped her red top and pushed up the vest top she wore under it. It was apparently one of those odd contraptions with a built-in bra, so as soon as it was out of the way, there was nothing between him and Rose’s lovely breasts.  
  
While Rose fought to pull her arms out of her sleeves and get her shirts all the way off, the Doctor kissed and licked and sucked at her nipples, coaxing the most intoxicating noises from her. Experimentation showed that a little nibble at the perimeter of her areola would send her into fits, make her forget the struggle to disrobe in favor of thrashing and moaning.  
  
As soon as she’d pulled free of her stubborn clothing, she yanked his head to hers for a kiss.  _I love you,_  she thought to him, and he sent back every bit of feeling in his hearts, flooded her with how much she meant to him.  
  
They separated briefly for the removal of trousers. Rose managed to get rid of every bit of her clothing while the Doctor was still struggling with his boots. She was ready for him when he finally got free, and she instantly pounced, kneeling between his legs with a wicked gleam in her eye.  
  
He wasn’t as physically sensitive as a human male would be, since his race’s sexual practices always emphasized telepathy at least as much as physicality, but it still felt so damn good when she ran her tongue from base to glans. The way she looked at him was almost better, part teasing and part just  _delighted_  to be here, in bed with him, touching him.  
  
Before she could really get started, he pulled her on top of him, needing to feel her entire body against his own. She spread her legs, straddling him, and she was wet and slick against him.  
  
“Do we need a condom?” Rose asked, her voice thick and breathless.  
  
“I’m an alien,” the Doctor reminded her. “You’d be more likely to get pregnant with an octopus. Or a banana.”  
  
Rose laughed, pressing her face against his neck and vibrating with giggles. He couldn’t help but chuckle along with her.  
  
“Weirdest pillow talk ever,” she said.  
  
“Isn’t pillow talk for after sex?” he asked plaintively, pressing his erection against her to make his point. “Thought we were sort of in the middle of it here.”  
  
She giggled again, then reached down and wiggled against him in some clever way that ended with him sliding inside her, her giggles turning into a groan.  
  
“Fuck, Rose,” he hissed. “You’re so wet.”  
  
“Fuck Rose,” she agreed, sounding much too in control for his liking. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”  
  
He made a sound that could arguably have been called a growl and pushed Rose off him and down into the bed, hiking her knees up around his elbows and sinking back into her before he quite realized what he was doing.  
  
“Oh, god, Doctor,” she gasped, eyes wide.  
  
“You like that?”  
  
“Mmmmm, yeah.” She squirmed under him, grinding against his cock. “Hard, Doctor, please.”  
  
Well, he always said her wish was his command. He pulled back and slammed into her with a force that made the bed hit against the wall. Rose clenched around him, so tight and hot, and clutched at his shoulders desperately.  
  
She made beautiful, guttural, breathless sounds as he pushed into her again and again, glorying in his ability to reduce her to this animalistic state, in the knowledge that he could keep this up for as long as it took without coming apart like a human male would. He released one of her legs so that she could brace herself against the bed to meet his thrusts, and lowered his now-free hand to where their bodies met, rubbing his thumb hard against her clit.  
  
“Need to feel you come, Rose,” he said.  
  
“Yes, oh, God, Doctor, yes, yesyesyesyesyes!”  
  
When he felt her walls twitch and pulse around him, he leant down without faltering in his rhythm, catching her lips with his and slipping down the smooth pathway to her mind. She was iridescent in orgasm, shining and beautiful, and he finally, finally let go.  
  
He poured his mind into Rose’s as his body emptied itself into her, and it felt like peace and absolution. Her own mind trickled back into his, displaced by the torrent of Doctor, and he held it close and precious. There was tragedy and loneliness in her mind, in her memories, but the Doctor’s overall impression was of beauty and determination and a bright, shining light.  
  
Their minds were only within one another for an instant before sliding back into place, leaving permanent traces in one another as they went. The Doctor made his exit carefully, mindful of the stretched walls of Rose’s psyche, and almost sobbed with relief when everything was back as it had been without any real damage done. She was unconscious, and would probably have a headache and more than a touch of secondhand melancholy when she woke, but she’d be fine.  
  
And she’d be safe.  
  
With an act of willpower, he forced himself out of her arms and out of her bed, dressing hastily. As soon as he was back in the console room he laid in a course for her mother’s home, late November, and cued up a hologram to play as soon as Rose entered the room.  
  
Then he left, locking the door behind him and cuing the sequence from outside. The TARDIS normally didn’t cooperate with that kind of heavy-handedness, but he knew that she’d be willing to make an exception, just this once.  
  
Rose would be home, and safe, and she would carry an imprint of him for the rest of her life. Causing that, he was sure, was a crime beyond just about any he’d committed, but as he felt her imprint within himself, he couldn’t quite regret it.


	14. Coda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter, unlike the rest of the story, contains spoilers through season 7. You won't be lost if you skip it, though.

It was a cold November morning, the kind of day when the whole sky forms a featureless white ceiling and the cold doesn’t bite so much as it sucks the warmth from your skin. There were no children playing basketball at the community hoops, no teenagers in surly cliques smoking or skateboarding. The only person around was a blonde woman in a blue jacket, staring at the dirty asphalt like it would reveal the secrets of the universe. She was clutching two fat pieces of sidewalk chalk, one white and one yellow.  
  
She’d been in the city for two days now, laying low and sleeping rough so that she could be here, on this day. As of yet, she wasn’t sure whether her role would be as a witness or as a participant, but she was here. The other weird not-coincidences of Bad Wolf were all explainable enough, but someone was going to chalk it in giant letters right where she needed it to be, and she wanted to either know who it was or to do it herself.  
  
With a crackle of temporal energy, a delicate-featured brunette appeared beside her.  
  
“Oh--hello,” she said to the startled blonde. “I thought he might need me to do this one, but I see you’ve got it under control. I’m Clara. Know who you are, of course.”  
  
“Sorry?” Rose said, mechanically shaking the proffered hand. “I don’t understand. How did you get here?”  
  
“It’s very, very, very complicated, and I probably shouldn’t tell you anyway. Let’s just say I’m a friend of the Doctor.”  
  
“Oh.” Jealousy and curiosity flared, but Rose pushed them down. Once she’d found the Doctor and saved the universes, she could worry about feelings like that. “Good.”  
  
There was a different crackle on the other side of Rose, and an older woman with wildly curling hair stumbled out of nothingness, Vortex Manipulator sparking on her wrist. She was also carrying sidewalk chalk.  
  
“Oh my,” she said, eyeing Rose and Clara. “I didn’t realize there would be a Doctor Enthusiasts Convention here today.”  
  
Rose sighed, and rubbed her forehead.  
  
“Why can’t anything ever be simple?” she asked no one in particular. “That’s what Bad Wolf should’ve done. Made it so things could be simple.” Sometimes Bad Wolf seemed more like some kind of interfering spirit than a version of herself she couldn’t quite remember.  
  
“But it’s so much more fun this way,” the older woman said. “I’m River, by the way.”  
  
“Clara.” The two shook hands. “We’ve met.”  
  
“Have we?” River raised her eyebrows. “I can’t wait.”  
  
“This is mental,” Rose announced. “But I’m going to be here in a few more hours, so I need to get writing.”  
  
“Now, hang on,” Clara said. “Why should it be you? I mean, you’re already going to be the one who sends the message and the one who gets it. Maybe someone else should have a go in the middle.”  
  
“Ooh, good point, Clara,” River said. “Besides, you’d recognize if it’s your own handwriting, won’t you? Clara, you want to do ‘bad’ and I’ll take ‘wolf’?”  
  
“Wait,” Rose commanded sharply. “Someone’s coming.”  
  
A tall man in a long blue coat was approaching from the opposite corner of the asphalt. He waved to the three women, winked at Rose, and knelt to begin writing.  
  
The three were silent for a moment.  
  
“It’s only fair,” Rose said. “It’s his story as much as mine.” And maybe this way, it was his choice as well, at least a little bit.  
  
“Ooh, does that mean this is the infamous Captain Jack?” River asked.  
  
“Really not the time,” Clara chastened. “I suppose I should be going, then. Nice to meet you both.” With another crackle, she vanished.  
  
“How did she do that?” River asked, surprised.  
  
“No idea,” Rose said.  
  
“Well. I should go too, if I’m not needed here.” She hesitated for a moment. “Keep trying. We’re all counting on you, you know.”  
  
“I will.”  
  
River nodded and fiddled with her wrist for a moment.  
  
“My love to the copy,” she said, and vanished.  
  
Rose stared in confusion at the place she’d vacated for a moment, then shrugged. Either it would make sense eventually, or it never would. No use worrying about it now.  
  
Jack had finished the “Bad” and was beginning the “W.” He was a surprisingly expert sidewalk-chalker. Well, he’d had the time to pick up all sorts of skills.  
  
Rose pressed a button concealed in one of her pockets and disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keep an eye out for the 10/Rose sequel "The Reborn and the Rose," which will start posting to AO3 tomorrow.


End file.
